“When” Does Picture Naming Take Longer Than Word Reading?

Background: Event-related changes in the EEG power spectrum have recently been used to study functional brain activation in humans. Like traditional event-related potentials, event-related spectral changes provide information about the temporal evolution of cortical activation that is difficult to obtain with fMRI or PET. These spectral changes include event-related suppression of power in the alpha band (8-13 Hz) and even-related augmentation of power in the gamma band (>30 Hz). Most studies of the gamma band have focused on frequencies in and around 40 Hz. Using electrocorticographic (ECoG) signals recorded with subdural electrodes implanted for the surgical management of epilepsy, we have also observed a broadband augmentation of power in higher gamma frequencies (>80 Hz). This index of cortical activation has compared favourably with alpha suppression and with electrical cortical stimulation mapping in studies utilising simple motor and auditory processing, but such a comparison has not been done for tasks requiring more complex language processing. Aims: We used two different spectral indices of cortical activation - alpha power suppression and gamma power augmentation, to study the spatial and temporal patterns of human cortical activation during different word production tasks. Methods: Subdural ECoG electrodes were implanted for clinical purposes in a patient with normal hearing, who had learned sign language as an adult and later developed intractable epilepsy. We measured event-related spectral changes during language tasks with different input and output modalities: Picture naming and word reading (visual inputs), and word repetition (auditory input) were performed with spoken responses (oral-articulatory output) and with signed responses (manual-gestural output). In addition we used a visually guided motor task to map tongue and hand representations independent of language. Results: Speech and signing differentially activated tongue and hand regions of sensorimotor cortex. Although posterior superior temporal gyrus was activated early during auditory word repetition, picture naming and word reading also activated this region, albeit slightly later, consistent with phonological and/or lexical-semantic processing. In contrast, basal temporal-occipital cortex was activated earlier and with greater magnitude during picture naming and word reading than during word repetition, suggesting semantic processing or object and word recognition. In all of the tasks, event-related gamma augmentation occurred in more discrete spatial and temporal patterns than event-related alpha suppression. Conclusions: Event-related alpha suppression and gamma augmentation provide complementary information about task-related cortical activation. This study demonstrates the utility of ECoG spectral analysis for studying the functional anatomy of human language with excellent temporal resolution.

The aim of the present study was to dissociate the neural correlates of semantic and phonological processes during word reading and picture naming. Previous studies have addressed this issue by contrasting tasks involving semantic and phonological decisions. However, these tasks engage verbal short‐term memory and executive functions that are not required for reading and naming. Here, 20 subjects were instructed to overtly name written words and pictures of objects while their neuronal responses were measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Each trial consisted of a pair of successive stimuli that were either semantically related (e.g., “ROBIN‐nest”), phonologically related (e.g., “BELL‐belt”), unrelated (e.g., “KITE‐lobster”), or semantically and phonologically identical (e.g., “FRIDGE‐fridge”). In addition, a pair of stimuli could be presented in either the same modality (word‐word or picture‐picture) or a different modality (word‐picture or picture‐word). We report that semantically related pairs modulate neuronal responses in a left‐lateralized network, including the pars orbitalis of the inferior frontal gyrus, the middle temporal gyrus, the angular gyrus, and the superior frontal gyrus. We propose that these areas are involved in stimulus‐driven semantic processes. In contrast, phonologically related pairs modulate neuronal responses in bilateral insula. This region is therefore implicated in the discrimination of similar, competing phonological and articulatory codes. The above effects were detected with both words and pictures and did not differ between the two modalities even with a less conservative statistical threshold. In conclusion, this study dissociates the effects of semantic and phonological relatedness between successive items during reading and naming aloud. Hum Brain Mapp, 2007. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.

Among the world's writing systems, the Chinese logographic system is considered to contrast markedly with alphabetic systems such as that used for English. Due to the very different grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPC) in these writing systems, word reading has often been supposed to differ radically for English and Chinese readers. Original Dual Route model predicts one group resorting to sound but the other relying on visual graphic cues to achieve word recognition and comprehension. This is the essence of the original Dual Route word reading processing. However, recent studies have offered an alternative perspective on this, exploring a variety of factors in readers' cognitive processing, and finding that phonological processing is universally available to all readers regardless of their writing system background, of which saying even applies to readers with Chinese as L1 (reader's first language or mother tongue) who can then, in fact, learn English as L2 (reader's second language) more successfully as a result of it. Here we would like to review the evolution of Dual Route Model and its related experiments, first cross-linguistically and then specifically for Chinese word reading, followed by Parallel-Distributed (or Interactive) Processing Model as a contrast. The purpose is to establish background information on the available models which attempt to explain the process of word reading/recognition, as well as cognitive factors which might also affect readers' use of the available phonological and orthographic processing routes. The end goal is to depict how the development of the dual mechanism evolves to embrace the interactive components of word reading processing, thus provides pedagogical value which is universal in specifying readers' cognitive effects on how readers process their L1 and L2 word reading.

Learning to read transforms lives. Reading contributes to knowledge acquisition, cultural engagement, and success in the school. The unequal distribution of literacy skills in a society is associated with economic and social inequalities as a result, children with a poor foundation in literacy before entering formal schooling are more likely to struggle academically and to drop out of school. For these reasons, there has been an intense scientific interest for decades in understanding how children learn to read. It is well established that in the early stages of reading development, phonological awareness, letter name-sounds knowledge, and the naming speed are three independent longitudinal predictors of children’s later word-reading skills in alphabetic-writing systems. Phonological awareness constitutes the ability to recognize and manipulate the sounds of their own language, meanwhile letter knowledge promotes the discovery of systematic relationships between writing and oral language. As early readers develop some level of phonological awareness and some level of letter knowledge, they can recognize written words through phonological recoding processes, in which graphemes are recoded as phonemes and assembled to pronounce words. In addition, rapid naming expresses the speed at which phonological information is accessed from a graphic label. Phonological processing and letter knowledge are powerfully affected by the experience, stimulation, and support that children receive before beginning formal education. Most children acquire these abilities relatively effortlessly during early childhood. However, there is a significant number of children in Latin America who experience difficulties in their pre-literacy skills development. This study examined the cognitive profiles of a total of 50 Uruguayan preschoolers from different socioeconomic backgrounds from two public schools in Montevideo, Uruguay. Twenty-six children from low-income households were compared to peers from middle-income. At the end of the pre-schooling period (time 1) receptive vocabulary, phonological awareness, letter name-sounds knowledge, and object naming speed tests were administered to children. One year later (time 2), word -reading of a subgroup of children was measured. Significant correlations were observed between all predictors at time 1; between predictors at time 1 and word reading at time 2; and between all measured abilities and socioeconomic status. Comparative analysis between children of different socioeconomic status showed that children growing up in poverty contexts performed more poorly than their peers from middle-income families in all the tests. Nonetheless, both groups performed poorly in word reading. Descriptive statistics indicated that, out of a total of 26 words, low SES children correctly read a total of 7 words per minute, and medium SES children a total of 14 words. Finally, regression analyses indicated that phonological awareness contributed 30 % variance in predicting the total score achieved in a reading-word test in children of low-income families, meanwhile letter name knowledge contributed 74 % variance in predicting the total score achieved in a reading-word test in their peers from middle-income families. In general terms, results of pre-reading skills and reading performance seem to indicate that children of different socioeconomic status use different word recognition strategies according to their level of letter-knowledge of and phonological processing. Discussion considers international literature pointing out that children who enter elementary school with limited reading-related skills are unlikely to be able to keep pace with their peers. These findings warn about the importance to elaborate systematic and high-quality educational proposals to try to reduce the gap in reading development for children from low-income families. Developing literacy and language skills before formal schooling sets a child up for success in school and life. Results also suggest the importance of analyzing the variables that affect reading development in populations that are not the majority described. https://doi.org/10.16888/interd.2022.39.3.5

Disagreement exists about whether lexical selection in word production is a competitive process. Competition predicts semantic interference from distractor words in immediate but not in delayed picture naming. In contrast, Janssen, Schirm, Mahon, and Caramazza (2008) obtained semantic interference in delayed picture naming when participants had to decide between picture naming and oral reading depending on the distractor word’s colour. We report three experiments that examined the role of such task decisions. In a single-task situation requiring picture naming only (Experiment 1), we obtained semantic interference in immediate but not in delayed naming. In a task-decision situation (Experiments 2 and 3), no semantic effects were obtained in immediate and delayed picture naming and word reading using either the materials of Experiment 1 or the materials of Janssen et al. (2008). We present an attentional account in which task decisions may hide or reveal semantic interference from lexical competition depending on the amount of parallelism between task-decision and picture–word processing.

Anomic Alexia of Kanji in a Patient with Anomic Aphasia

ABSTRACTIn the picture–word interference paradigm, participants name pictures while ignoring a distractor word. When targets and distractors share phonemic and/or graphemic content, naming latencies are shorter than when there is no overlap between the two words. This study examines the hypothesis that the facilitation effect is modulated by differences in the time it takes participants to encode the picture name and process the distractor. Participants named pictures while ignoring distractors that either shared a phonological/orthographical syllable with the target word or were unrelated to that word. Response latencies during the naming of the distractors were collected and used as a measure of distractor processing time. The facilitation effect in picture naming was modulated by differences in response times between the picture and word naming tasks. This finding complements previous studies in showing that picture naming processes in the picture–word interference paradigm are influenced by the time course of distractor processing.

In a previous article, (Riès, Legou, Burle, Alario, & Malfait, 2012), we reported that articulatory processes contribute to the well-established finding that response latencies are longer for picture naming than for word reading. We based this conclusion on the observation that picture naming, as compared with word reading, lengthened not only the interval between stimulus onset and the initiation of lip muscle activation (premotor time), but also the interval between lip muscle activation and vocal response onset (motor time). However, on the basis of our subsequent work in this area, we believe that our original definition of premotor time (and, consequently, of motor time) was suboptimal. On a sizable number of trials, this led to the detection of lip muscle activation (as inferred from surface EMG) that was apparently unrelated to the articulation of the vocal response. Therefore, we believe it is preferable to operationalize premotor time as the interval between stimulus onset and the muscle activation that occurred closest in time to vocal response onset. After reestimating premotor times according to this new definition, we no longer found an effect of our task contrast on the motor time interval. The present article explains the caveats regarding our previous analysis.

This article reports an experiment investigating similarities and differences in basic processing involved in the word reading of second language (L2) readers of English. The investigation specifically targeted phonological and orthographic processes in the context of language transfer from native language (L1) to L2 during reading tasks. Groups of young adults who were native speakers of either Russian or Japanese and low‐intermediate ESL learners were matched on a measure of English word reading and then compared on a number of cognitive and linguistic reading‐related tasks. Despite differences in processing strengths, neither group demonstrated an advantage in nonword reading. The results have implications for theories of reading disability built around the notion of deficits in phonological processing.

The majority of previous studies on cognate words have found a robust cognate facilitation effect in picture naming using alphabetic languages. Research has also identified that if the cognates do not share phonology or meaning (i.e., false cognate inhibition effect), this effect may become inhibitory. These mixed findings seem to suggest that semantics, phonology and orthography may contribute differently to cognate word processing. In this thesis, two effects, the phonological overlap effect and the orthographical overlap effect were examined independently for the first time by testing picture naming in two non-alphabetic languages: Cantonese and Mandarin. Two types of cognate words were included: cognate and semi-cognate words. The orthography of both cognate and semi-cognate words is shared between L1 and L2, but only cognate words share phonology.
\nThe thesis study included three experiments. In the preparatory experiment, an on-line rating study was conducted, whereby cognate and semi-cognate words with mono-syllabic or bi-syllabic names in Mandarin and Cantonese were rated on word AOA, frequency, picture complexity, familiarity and image agreement. From the preparatory experiments a pictorial-word corpus was selected to use in Experiments 1 and 2. In Experiment 1, Cantonese-Mandarin bilinguals named pictures in the corpus in L1 (Cantonese). By contrasting cognate and semi-cognate word naming latency, the results showed a slowed naming latency for cognate words that was marginally significant. It is argued that this finding reflects a possible inhibitory effect from the difference in stages at which competition occurs and the difference in the cognitive load of that competition for cognate and semi-cognate words. In Experiment 2, Cantonese-Mandarin bilinguals named the same pictures in L2 (Mandarin), showing a similar trend of cognate inhibition effect as that found in Experiment 1, albeit with a smaller magnitude of cognate inhibition.
\nTaken together, the cognate inhibition effect can be explained by the different stages of cross-language competition that occur for cognate and semi-cognate words in picture naming. The cognitive load of overcoming that competition is larger for cognate than for semi-cognate words.

The aim of this study was to investigate the phonemic and semantic input and output processes that underlie overt speech and language behaviour in aphasic syndromes. To this end, two non-oral tasks involving word identification and matching were employed. Twenty-five aphasic and 22 matched controls were required to identify pictures of spoken words from arrays of either phonemic or semantic distractors. In the matching tasks, which attempted to mimic the phonological and semantic processes involved in picture naming, (that is, output), subjects had to match pictured words on the basis of phonemic and semantic similarity. Results showed that the pattern of phonemic and semantic impairment observed within individual aphasic syndromes was generally consistent with their overt speech and language behaviour. Of particular interest was that the phonemic matching task presented particular difficulty for all aphasic groups regardless of type. Further studies into phonemic output processing may hold the key to the...

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship of three subskills associated with word decoding. The skills utilized for this study were phonological, rapid automatized naming (RAN), and orthographic processing. To do this, six separate models were utilized to define different ways that these three subskills (represented as factors) related to one another, with the goal of finding which model provided the best prediction of word decoding. A sample of 100 subjects from the PAIRW normative sample was used for this study. Results of structural equation modeling, utilizing the AMOS 4.0 program, revealed that using all three subskills concurrently provided the best-fitting model. Contrary to previous research, orthographic, rather than phonological, processing skills were found to be the best predictor of word decoding. RAN was found to be the second best predictor, but only indirectly through the Phonological and Orthographic factors. Moreover, when RAN was utilized as a predictor of orthographic and phonological processing, it provided a better-fitting model than when orthographic and phonological processing were used as predictors of RAN. Utilizing RAN as a predictor of both phonological and orthographic processing was found to provide a better-fitting model than when RAN was used to predict either the Phonological or Orthographic factor alone. The relevance of utilizing all three subskills in psychoeducational assessment is discussed, as well as implications for future research.

Orthographic effects on picture naming in Chinese: A 4T erfMRI study

This paper presents an overview of evidence from psychological research, which enables us to understand the processes involved in word reading, how children develop word reading skills and how to teach them to read words successfully. Psychological models of reading in alphabetic orthographies propose two routes to word reading: an indirect route requiring mapping of letters and sounds using phonological processes and a direct route, mapping visual identities of words onto meaning using visual processes and memory. The dual route paves the way to an understanding of what children need to achieve to be able to read words. Evidence about how people read words successfully has led to the development of effective teaching programmes and of tests to identify deficits when word reading does not develop optimally.

Magnetoencephalographic imaging (MEGI) offers a non-invasive alternative for defining preoperative language lateralization in neurosurgery patients. MEGI indeed can be used for accurate estimation of language lateralization with a complex language task – auditory verb generation. However, since language function may vary considerably in patients with focal lesions, it is important to optimize MEGI for estimation of language function with other simpler language tasks. The goal of this study was to optimize MEGI laterality analyses for two such simpler language tasks that can have compliance from those with impaired language function: a non-word repetition (NWR) task and a picture naming (PN) task. Language lateralization results for these two tasks were compared to the verb-generation (VG) task. MEGI reconstruction parameters (regions and time windows) for NWR and PN were first defined in a presurgical training cohort by benchmarking these against laterality indices for VG. Optimized time windows and regions of interest (ROIs) for NWR and PN were determined by examining oscillations in the beta band (12–30 Hz) a marker of neural activity known to be concordant with the VG laterality index (LI). For NWR, additional ROIs include areas MTG/ITG and for both NWR and PN, the postcentral gyrus was included in analyses. Optimal time windows for NWR were defined as 650–850 ms (stimulus-locked) and −350 to −150 ms (response-locked) and for PN −450 to −250 ms (response-locked). To verify the optimal parameters defined in our training cohort for NWR and PN, we examined an independent validation cohort (n = 30 for NWR, n = 28 for PN) and found high concordance between VG laterality and PN laterality (82%) and between VG laterality and NWR laterality (87%). Finally, in a test cohort (n = 8) that underwent both the intracarotid amobarbital procedure (IAP) test and MEG for VG, NWR, and PN, we identified excellent concordance (100%) with IAP for VG + NWR + PN composite LI, high concordance for PN alone (87.5%), and moderate concordance for NWR alone (66.7%). These findings provide task options for non-invasive language mapping with MEGI that can be calibrated for language abilities of individual patients. Results also demonstrate that more accurate estimates can be obtained by combining laterality estimates obtained from multiple tasks. MEGI