Reading between the dots: reorganization related to expertise in reading visual Braille
(2024) B&C Seminar — Location: Lueven (28.May.2024)
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- Authors
Cerpelloni, Filippo 
Van Audenhaege, Alice Gau, Remi
- Abstract
- Shape features are crucial for object recognition and for reading, as most written systems developed throughout history share basic shape features with natural objects. In the human brain, visual scripts activate a region referred to as the visual word form area (VWFA), and theories behind its activation divide between the role played by line-junctions and the importance of linguistic content in determining VWFA responses to written stimuli. In this project, we try to disentangle these two aspects by investigating Braille, a script developed for touch that does not share the typical explicit shape information of other alphabets, when read visually. In a first study, we compared visual Braille readers and a naïve control group. Through two fMRI experiments, we found visual word form area (VWFA) selectivity for visual Braille, but only in expert Braille readers. Multivariate analyses showed that linguistic properties can be decoded from Latin in both groups and from Braille in expert readers, although without cross-script generalization, suggesting script-specific orthographic representations. Such orthographic representations extend to primary visual cortex, shape-selective areas (LO), and linguistic areas (l-PosTemp), with cross-script generalization in left Posterior Temporal area. In a second study, we looked at the behavioural mechanisms of learning such script. We trained two groups of naïve participants to learn either Braille or a version of it where the dots were joined into lines (Connected Braille). Preliminary data shows no significant differences in the performance after a few days of training. Overall, these results show that the linguistic properties of a visual script, rather than low-level line-junctions properties, play a major role both in how an individual approaches reading, and how the visual system, and VWFA in particular, processes scripts
- Affiliations
KU Leuven Departement of Brain and Cognition
Citations
Cerpelloni, F. (2024). Reading between the dots: reorganization related to expertise in reading visual Braille. B&C Seminar, Lueven. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/239803