THE ROLE OF VISUAL EXPERTISE IN LETTER PERCEPTION

描述（改编自申请人的摘要）：行为，功能性大脑 功能磁共振成像（fMRI）、电生理（ERP）和神经心理学实验 将研究字母是如何被感知的该项目的动机是 外纹中面孔和字母特化的框架解释 通过详细分析不同的识别目标和 可用于识别这些类别的信息。实验 将评估什么是“特殊”的专家信的假设 感知是字母样式中的字母（包括方向、大小写 和字体）用于促进字母识别（访问字母 身份）。特别是，我们将研究读者如何学习使用 印刷的规律性，以促进字母的感知在基本层面上，如何 这种能力不同于一般的物体识别策略， 导致视觉皮层中字母特定区域的专门化。 该项目有四个目标： I）确定有经验的读者的行为效应 识别字母; 研究视觉皮层字母选择区的基本特性， ERP和fMRI; III）使用行为，fMRI和ERP测量来研究假设 有阅读障碍的人阅读能力差的历史会导致 特殊字母系统的异常专业化; IV）测试预测视觉皮层专门化区域的病变 获得性外周性失读症（纯失读症）患者的字母。 这项研究将调查视觉因素单独对 专业化的信件。这些信息对于理解 语言对阅读的影响，并将扩展一个新兴的框架 解释纹外皮层中的类别特异性效应， 通过最适合不同职业的经验进行招聘 承认目标。理解专家信感知的特征是 也是了解那些没有获得这种专业知识的疾病所必需的 (such如诵读困难）或丢失（如视力低下）。

DESCRIPTION (adapted from applicant's abstract): Behavioral, functional brain imaging (fMRI), electrophysiological (ERP) and neuropsychological experiments will investigate how letters are perceived. The project is motivated by a framework accounting for specialization for faces and letters in extrastriate cortex by a detailed analysis of the different recognition goals and the information available for the recognition of these categories. The experiments will evaluate the hypothesis that what is "special" about expert letter perception is that regularities in letter style (including orientation, case and font) is used to facilitate letter recognition (access to letter identities). In particular, we will investigate how readers may learn to use the regularity of print to facilitate letter perception at the basic level, how this ability differs from general object recognition strategies and whether it leads to specialization of letter-specific areas in visual cortex. This project has four aims: I) identify behavioral effects that are special to the way experienced readers recognize letters; II) study the basic properties of letter-selective areas in visual cortex with ERP and fMRI; III) use behavioral, fMRI and ERP measurements to investigate the hypothesis that a history of poor reading expertise in dyslexic individuals leads to abnormal specialization of the letter-specific system; IV) test predictions about lesions in areas of the visual cortex specialized for letters in individuals with acquired peripheral dyslexia (pure alexia). This research will investigate how much visual factors alone contribute to specialization for letters. This information is necessary to understand linguistic influences on reading and would extend an emerging framework interpreting category-specific effects in extrastriate cortex in terms of the recruitment through experience of processes best suited for different recognition goals. Understanding what characterizes expert letter perception is also necessary to understand disorders in which this expertise is not acquired (such as dyslexia) or is lost (such as low vision).