Abstract
We employ a linear mixed-effects model to estimate the effects of visual form and the linguistic properties of Chinese characters on M100 and M170 MEG responses from single-trial data of Chinese and English speakers in a Chinese lexical decision task. Cortically constrained minimum-norm estimation is used to compute the activation of M100 and M170 responses in functionally defined regions of interest. Both Chinese and English participants' M100 responses tend to increase in response to characters with a high numbers of strokes. English participants' M170 responses show a posterior distribution and only reflect the effect of the visual complexity of characters. On the other hand, the Chinese participants' left hemisphere M170 is increased when reading characters with high number of strokes, and their right hemisphere M170 is increased when reading characters with small combinability of semantic radicals. Our results suggest that expertise with words and the decomposition of word forms underlies processing in the left and right occipitotemporal regions in the reading of Chinese characters by Chinese speakers.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 1-11 |
Number of pages | 11 |
Journal | Brain and Language |
Volume | 117 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Apr 2011 |
Keywords
- Chinese characters
- Language experience
- M170
- Visual word recognition
- VWFA