Neural specialization for letter recognition

被引:211
作者
Polk, TA
Stallcup, M
Aguirre, GK
Alsop, DC
D'Esposito, M
Detre, JA
Farah, MJ
机构
[1] Univ Michigan, Dept Psychol, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 USA
[2] Univ Penn, Philadelphia, PA 19104 USA
关键词
D O I
10.1162/089892902317236803
中图分类号
Q189 [神经科学];
学科分类号
071006 ;
摘要
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to estimate neural activity while subjects viewed strings of consonants, digits, and shapes. An area on or near the left fusiform gyrus was found that responded significantly more to letters than digits. Similar results were obtained when consonants were used whose visual features were matched with the digits and when an active matching task eras used, suggesting that the results cannot be easily attributed to artifacts of the stimuli or task. These results demonstrate that neural specialization in the human brain can extend to a category of stimuli that is culturally defined and that is acquired many years postnatally.
引用
收藏
页码:145 / 159
页数:15
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