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Neural Facilitation in Visual Word Processing Following Parafoveal Preview and Stimulus Repetition
Poster Session D, Saturday, October 26, 10:30 am - 12:00 pm, Great Hall 3 and 4
Urs Maurer1; 1The Chinese University of Hong Kong
The visual N1/N170 component of the ERP has been shown to be sensitive to print early during literacy acquisition showing an increase for words compared to control stimuli that emerges with learning to read. However, this N1 print sensitivity decreased with further reading practice suggesting that decreased N1 activation might reflect more efficient processing in proficient reading. Similarly, N1 amplitude was found to be decreased for high frequency compared to low frequency words. In our recent work, we found more evidence that the N1 (particularly the N1 offset) is reduced, when word processing is facilitated. I will report results from several EEG studies that used (masked) repetition priming and boundary paradigm experiments with concurrent eye-tracking. The results showed similar effects of a reduction in the late N1/N250 component, if a word was repeated or previously viewed in the parafovea. Parafoveal preview facilitation also depended on the experience with the direction of a writing system, as tested with horizontal and vertical Chinese in readers from Mainland China and from Taiwan. The results suggest that early visual-orthographic processing as measured by the late N1 and N250 components of the ERP is not just sensitive to the development of visual expertise for print at the beginning of learning to read, but also reflects facilitation through previously available stimulus information in skilled reading.
Topic Areas: Reading,