Papers Related to Lab Projects
Developmental differences of neurocognitive networks for phonological and semantics processing in Chinese word reading.
Item specific and generalization effects on brain activation when learning Chinese characters.
Developmental changes in activation and connectivity in phonological processing.
Neural correlates of orthographic and phonological consistency effects in children.
The interaction between orthographic and phonological information in children: an fMRI study.
The neural correlates of mapping from phonology to orthography in children performing an auditory spelling task.
Visual word access in monolonguals and bilinguals in English and Spanish.
Brain bases of learning and development of language and reading.
The role of the basal ganglia and cerebellum in language processing.
Children with reading disorder show modality independent brain abnormalities during semantic tasks.
Phonological priming in visual word recognition for English words: An event related functional MRI study.
Development of lexical and sentence level context effects for dominant and subordinate word meanings of homonyms.
Deficient orthographic and phonological representations in developmental dyslexics revealed by brain activation patterns.
Weaker top-down modulation from inferior frontal gyrus in children.
The interaction between orthographic and phonological information in children: an fMRI study.
Developmental and skill effects on the neural correlates of semantic processing to visually presented words.
Specialization of phonological and semantic processing in Chinese word reading.
Developmental changes in the neural correlates of semantic processing.
More modeling but still no stages: Reply to Borowsky and Besner (2006)
Differential prefrontal-temporal neural correlates of semantic processing in children
Shifts of effective connectivity within a language network during rhyming and spelling
Using neuro-imaging to test developmental models of reading acquisition
Larger deficits in brain networks for response inhibition than for visual selective attention in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
Development of brain mechanisms for processing orthographic and phonological representations
Brain-behavior correlation in children depends on the neuro-cognitive network
Neural development of selective attention and response inhibition
Modality-specific and -independent developmental differences in the neural substrate for lexical processing
The relation between brain activation and lexical performance
Modality independence of word comprehension
Functional anatomy of intra- and cross-modal lexical tasks
Onset and rime structure influences naming but not early word identification in children and adults
The development of specialized brain systems for reading and oral-language
Developmental differences in brain systems for reading
Development and disorders of neuro-cognitive systems for oral-language and reading
Developmental and lesion effects in brain activation during sentence comprehension and mental rotation
Individual and developmental differences in semantic priming: Empirical findings and computational support for a single-mechanism account of lexical processing
Developmental differences in visual and auditory processing of complex sentences
The association of rapid temporal perception with orthographic and phonological processing in reading impaired children and adults
Functional organization of activation patterns in children: Whole brain fMRI imaging during three different cognitive tasks
Quick, automatic, and general activation of orthographic and phonological representations in young readers
Fillers and spaces in text: Evidence for the importance of word recognition during reading
Acquisition of mental state verbs by 2- to 5-year-old children
Much ado about nothing: The place of space in text
Development of the understanding of the polysemous mental state verb "know"
Role of the cognitive internal state lexicon in reading comprehension
Reading unspaced text: Implications for theories of reading eye movements
Influences of schooling and urban rural residence on gender differences in cognitive abilities and academic achievement
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Cao F, Peng DL, Liu L, Jin Z, Fan N, Deng Y & Booth JR (in press). Developmental differences of neurocognitive networks for phonological and semantics processing in Chinese word reading. Human Brain Mapping.
Developmental differences in the neurocognitive networks for phonological and semantic processing in Chinese word reading were examined in 13 adults and 13 children using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Rhyming and semantic association judgments were made to two-character words that were presented sequentially in the visual modality. These lexical tasks were compared with a nonlinguistic control task involving judgment of line patterns. The first main finding was that adults showed greater activation than children in left inferior parietal lobule for the rhyming as compared to the meaning task, suggesting greater specialization of phonological processing in adults. The second main finding was that adults showed greater activation than children in right middle occipital gyrus on both the meaning and rhyming task, suggesting adults more effectively engage right hemisphere brain regions involved in the visual-spatial analysis of Chinese characters. The third main finding was that children who had better performance in the rhyming task on characters with conflicting orthographic and phonological information relative to characters with non-conflicting information showed greater activation in left middle frontal gyrus, suggesting greater engagement of brain regions involved in the integration of orthography and phonology.Deng Y, Booth JR, Chou TL, Ding GS & Peng DL (in press). Item specific and generalization effects on brain activation when learning Chinese characters. Neuropsychologia.
Neural changes related to learning of the meaning of Chinese characters in English speakers were examined using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We examined item specific learning effects for trained characters, but also the generalization of semantic knowledge to novel transfer characters that shared a semantic radical (part of a character that gives a clue to word meaning, e.g. water for lake) with trained characters. Behavioral results show that acquired semantic knowledge improves performance for both trained and transfer characters. Neuroimaging results show that the left fusiform gyrus plays a central role in the visual processing of orthographic information in characters. The left superior parietal cortex seems to play a crucial role in learning the visual-spatial aspects of the characters because it shows learning related decreases for trained characters, is correlated with behavioral improvement from early to late in learning for the trained characters, and is correlated with better long-term retention for the transfer characters. The inferior frontal gyrus seems to be associated with the efficiency of retrieving and manipulating semantic representations because there are learning related decreases for trained characters and this decrease is correlated with greater behavioral improvement from early to late in learning.Bitan T, Cheon J, Lu D, Burman DD, Gitelman D, Mesulam MM & Booth JR (in press). Developmental changes in activation and connectivity in phonological processing. Neuroimage.
The current study examined developmental changes in activation and effective connectivity among brain regions during a phonological processing task, using fMRI. Participants, ages 9-15, were scanned while performing rhyming judgments on pairs of visually presented words. The orthographic and phonological similarity between words in the pair was independently manipulated, so that rhyming judgment could not be based on orthographic similarity. Our results show a developmental increase in activation in the dorsal part of left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), accompanied by a decrease in the dorsal part of left superior temporal gyrus (STG). The coupling of dorsal IFG with other selected brain regions involved in the phonological decision increased with age, while the coupling of STG decreased with age. These results suggest that during development there is a shift from reliance on sensory auditory representations to reliance on phonological segmentation and covert articulation for performing rhyming judgment on visually presented words. In addition, we found a developmental increase in activation in left posterior parietal cortex that was not accompanied by a change in its connectivity with the other regions. These results suggest that maturational changes within a cortical region are not necessarily accompanied by an increase in its interactions with other regions and its contribution to the task. Our results are consistent with the idea that there is reduced reliance on primary sensory processes as task-relevant processes mature and become more efficient during development.Bolger DJ, Hornickel J, Nadia E Cone, Burman DD, Booth JR (in press). Neural correlates of orthographic and phonological consistency effects in children. Human Brain Mapping.
The objective of this study was to examine the neural correlates of phonological inconsistency (relationship of spelling to sound) and orthographic inconsistency (relationship of sound to spelling) using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Nine to fifteen year old children performed a rhyming and spelling task in which two words were presented sequentially in the visual modality. Consistent with previous studies in adults, higher phonological inconsistency was associated with greater activation in several regions including left inferior frontal gyrus and medial frontal gyrus/anterior cingulate cortex. We additionally demonstrated an orthographic inconsistency effect in these areas. Greater activation in these regions presumably results from greater demands on orthographic and phonological processing as well as conflict resolution. Higher phonological and orthographic consistency was associated with greater activation in precuneus/posterior cingulate cortex, the putative steady state system active during resting, suggesting lower demands on cognitive resources for consistent items. Both consistency effects were larger for the rhyming compared to the spelling task suggesting greater demands of integrating spelling and sound in the former task. Finally, accuracy on the rhyming task was negatively correlated with the consistency effect in left fusiform gyrus. Low skill children were not sensitive to phonological or orthographic inconsistency, moderate skill children were only sensitive to higher phonological and orthographic inconsistency, and high skill children were sensitive to both higher and lower phonological and orthographic inconsistency. The brain-behavior correlations suggest that children initially master inconsistent words and only with greater expertise do they become tuned to consistent words. In general, these results show that phonological information influences orthographic processing in fusiform gyrus.Bitan T, Burman DD, Chou TL, Lu D, Cone NE, Cao F, Bigio JD & Booth JR (in press) The interaction between orthographic and phonological information in children: an fMRI study. Human Brain Mapping.
We examined the neural representations of orthographic and phonological processing in children, while manipulating the consistency between orthographic and phonological information. Participants, ages 9-15, were scanned while performing rhyming and spelling judgments on pairs of visually presented words. The orthographic and phonological similarity between words in the pair was independently manipulated, resulting in four conditions. In the non-conflicting conditions, both orthography and phonology of the words were either (1) similar (lime-dime) or (2) different (staff-gain). In conflicting conditions, words had (3) similar phonology and different orthography (jazz-has) or (4) different phonology and similar orthography (pint-mint). The comparison between tasks resulted in greater activation for the rhyming task in bilateral inferior frontal gyri (BA 45/47), and greater activation for the spelling task in bilateral inferior/superior parietal lobules (BA 40/7), suggesting greater involvement of phonological and semantic processing in the rhyming task, and non-linguistic spatial processing in the spelling task. Conflicting conditions were more difficult in both tasks and resulted in greater activation in the above regions. The results suggest that when children encounter inconsistency between orthographic and phonological information they show greater engagement of both orthographic and phonological processing.Booth JR, Cho S, Burman DD & Bitan T (in press). The neural correlates of mapping from phonology to orthography in children performing an auditory spelling task. Developmental Science.
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Age-related differences (9- to 15-year-olds) in the neural correlates of mapping from phonology to orthography were examined with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Participants were asked to determine if two spoken words had the same spelling for the rime (corresponding letters after the first consonant or consonant cluster). Some of the word pairs had conflicting orthography and phonology (e.g. jazz-has, pint-mint) whereas other pairs had non-conflicting information (e.g. press-list, gate-hate). There were age-related increases in activation for lexical processing (across conflicting and non-conflicting conditions) in left inferior parietal lobule, suggesting that older children have a more elaborated system for mapping between phonology and orthography that includes connections at different grain sizes (e.g. phonemes, onset-rimes, syllables). In addition, we found that the conflicting conditions had lower accuracy, slower reaction time and greater activation in left inferior frontal gyrus as compared to non-conflicting conditions. Higher accuracy was also correlated greater activation in left inferior frontal gyrus for the most difficult conflicting condition (e.g. jazz-has). The finding of both a conflict effect and a correlation with accuracy in left inferior frontal gyrus suggests that this region may be involved in resolving the conflict between orthographic and phonological representations.Strid JE & Booth JR (in press). Visual word access in monolonguals and bilinguals in English and Spanish. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research.
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Two experiments examined if visual word access varies cross-linguistically by studying Spanish/English adult bilinguals, priming two syllable CVCV words both within (Experiment 1) and across (Experiment 2) syllable boundaries in the two languages. Spanish readers accessed more first syllables based on within syllable primes compared to English readers. In contrast, syllable based primes helped English readers recognize more words than in Spanish, suggesting that experienced English readers activate a larger unit in the initial stages of word recognition. Primes spanning the syllable boundary affected readers of both languages in similar ways. In this priming context, primes that did not span the syllable boundary helped Spanish readers recognize more syllables, while English readers identified more words, further confirming the importance of the syllable in Spanish and suggesting a larger unit in English. Overall, the experiments provide evidence that readers use different units in accessing words in the two languages.Booth JR (2007). Brain bases of learning and development of language and reading. In D Coch, G Dawson & KW Fischer (Eds), Human Behavior, Learning and the Developing Brain (pp 279-300). Guilford Press.
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The purpose of this chapter is to review what is known about the development of neurocognitive networks for language and reading. The chapter will focus on age-related changes in orthographic, phonological, semantic, and syntactical processing. Particular attention will be paid to how these different representational systems are integrated by posterior heteromodal cortex and how anterior systems in the inferior frontal gyrus may modulate these processes. Throughout this chapter, we will examine whether learning mechanisms in adults are similar to developmental changes. Similarities between learning and development would support the skill-learning hypothesis that the neural basis of behavioral and cognitive development in children is the same as skill acquisition in adults.Booth JR, Wood L, Lu D, Houk J & Bitan T (2007). The role of the basal ganglia and cerebellum in language processing. Brain Research, 1133, 136-144.
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The roles of the cerebellum and basal ganglia have typically been confined in the literature to motor planning and control. However, mounting evidence suggests that these structures are involved in more cognitive domains such as language processing. In the current study, we looked at effective connectivity (the influence that one brain region has on another) of the cerebellum and basal ganglia with regions thought to be involved in phonological processing, i.e. left inferior frontal gyrus and left lateral temporal cortex. We analyzed functional magnetic resonance imaging data (fMRI) obtained during a rhyming judgment task in adults using dynamic causal modeling (DCM). The results showed that the cerebellum has reciprocal connections with both left inferior frontal gyrus and left lateral temporal cortex, whereas the putamen has unidirectional connections into these two brain regions. Furthermore, the connections between cerebellum and these phonological processing areas were stronger than the connections between putamen and these areas. This pattern of results suggests that the putamen and cerebellum may have distinct roles in language processing. Based on research in the motor planning and control literature, we argue that the putamen engages in cortical initiation while the cerebellum amplifies and refines this signal to facilitate correct decision making.Booth JR, Bebko G, Burman DD & Bitan T (in press). Children with reading disorder show modality independent brain abnormalities during semantic tasks. Neuropsychologia, 45, 775-783.
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Neuroimaging studies have suggested that left inferior frontal gyrus, left inferior parietal lobule and left middle temporal gyrus are critical for semantic processing in normal children. The goal of the present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study was to determine whether these regions are systematically related to semantic processing in children (9- to 15-year-olds) diagnosed with reading disorders (RD). Semantic judgments required participants to indicate whether two words were related in meaning. The strength of semantic association varied continuously from higher association pairs (e.g., king - queen) to lower association pairs (e.g. net - ship). We found that the correlation between association strength and activation was significantly weaker for RD children compared to controls in left middle temporal gyrus and left inferior parietal lobule for both the auditory and the visual modalities and in left inferior frontal gyrus for the visual modality. These results suggest that the RD children have abnormalities in semantic search/retrieval in the inferior frontal gyrus, integration of semantic information in the inferior parietal lobule and semantic lexical representations in the middle temporal gyrus. These deficits appear to be general to the semantic system and independent of modality. Chou TL, Davis MH, Marslen-Wilson WD, Booth JR (2006). Phonological priming in visual word recognition for English words: An event related functional MRI study. Chinese Journal of Pscyhology, 4, 1-18.
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Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to explore the nature of the mappings between orthography, phonology, and semantics in reading English words. Stimulus pairs were arranged in a priming paradigm with lexical decision to understand the neural correlates of phonological processes. Homophonic targets varied in the regularity of the mapping from spelling to sound (e.g., feet-feat, bare-bear). There were three main findings. First, the results revealed that the left middle temporal gyrus (BA 21) showed increased neural activity for phonologically primed irregular pairs consistent with increased semantic involvement in making lexical decisions when the mapping between orthography and phonology is made difficult. Second, the left supramarginal gyrus (BA 40) was associated with reduced neural activity for phonologically-identical pairs with regular spelling to sound correspondences, when the mapping between orthography and phonology is made easy. Third, the visual association cortex including the left fusiform gyrus (BA 37) showed more activation in the homophone pairs compared to the unrelated pairs and more activation for pseudoword targets compared to word targets, suggesting that this region may have been involved in a spelling check on lexical decisions. These three findings show how phonological priming effects on behaviour can result from a complex interaction of several processing phases involving both increases and decreases of activity.Booth JR, Harasaki Y& Burman, DD (in press). Development of lexical and sentence level context effects for dominant and subordinate word meanings of homonyms. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 35, 531-554.
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Nine, ten and twelve year old children (N = 75) read aloud dominant, subordinate or ambiguous bias sentences (N = 120) that ended in a homonym (BALL). After the sentence (1000 ms), children read aloud targets that were related to the dominant (BAT) or subordinate (DANCE) meaning of the homonym or control targets. Participants were also divided into three reading skill groups based on an independent measure of single word oral reading accuracy. There were three main developmental and reading skill findings. First, 9-year-olds and low skill readers showed lexical level facilitation in accuracy. Second, 9- and 10-year-olds or low and moderate skill readers showed lexical level facilitation in reaction time. Third, 12-year-olds or high skill readers showed sentence level facilitation in reaction time with high skill readers additionally showing sentence level inhibition in reaction time. These results show that lexical level context effects decreased and that sentence level context effects increased with development and skill. These results are discussed in terms of connectionist models of visual word recognition that incorporate distributed attractor principles.Cao F, Bitan T, Chou TL, Burman DD & Booth JR (in press). Deficient orthographic and phonological representations in developmental dyslexics revealed by brain activation patterns. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 40, 1041-1050.
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The current study examined the neuro-cognitive network of visual word rhyming judgment in 14 children with dyslexia and 14 age-matched control children (8- to 14-year-olds) using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). In order to manipulate the difficulty of mapping orthography to phonology, we used conflicting and non-conflicting trials. The words in conflicting trials either had similar orthography but different phonology (e.g. pint-mint) or similar phonology but different orthography (e.g. jazz-has). The words in non-conflicting trials had similar orthography and phonology (e.g. gate-hate) or different orthography and phonology (e.g. press-list). There were no differences in brain activation between the controls and children with dyslexia in the easier non-conflicting trials. However, the children with dyslexia showed less activation than the controls in left inferior frontal gyrus (BA 45/44/47/9), left inferior parietal lobule (BA 40), left inferior temporal gyrus/fusiform gyrus (BA 20/37) and left middle temporal gyrus (BA 21) for the more difficult conflicting trials. For the direct comparison of conflicting minus non-conflicting trials, controls showed greater activation than children with dyslexia in left inferior frontal gyrus (BA 9/45/46) and medial frontal gyrus (BA 8). Children with dyslexia did not show greater activation than controls for any comparison. Reduced activation in these regions suggests that children with dyslexia have deficient orthographic representations in ventral temporal cortex as well as deficits in mapping between orthographic and phonological representations in inferior parietal cortex. The greater activation for the controls in inferior frontal gyrus could reflect more effective top-down modulation of posterior representations.Bitan T, Burman DD, Lu D, Cone NE, Gitelman DR, Mesulam MM & Booth JR (in press). Weaker top-down modulation from inferior frontal gyrus in children. Neuroimage, 33, 991-998.
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Previous studies have shown that developmental changes in the structure and function of prefrontal regions can continue throughout childhood and adolescence. Our recent results suggested a role for the left inferior frontal cortex in modulating task-dependent shifts in effective connectivity when adults focus on orthographic versus phonological aspects of presented words. Specifically, the top-down influence of the inferior frontal cortex determined whether incoming word-form information from the fusiform gyrus would have a greater impact on the parietal areas involved in orthographic processing or temporal areas involved in phonological processing (Bitan, et al., 2005). In the current study, we find that children displayed an identical pattern of task-dependent functional activations within this network. In comparison to adults, however, children had significantly weaker top-down modulatory influences emanating from the inferior frontal area. Adult language processing may thus involve greater top-down cognitive control compared to children, resulting in less interference from task-irrelevant information.Bitan T, Burman DD, Chou TL, Lu D, Cone NE, Cao F, Bigio JD & Booth JR (in press) The interaction between orthographic and phonological information in children: an fMRI study. Neuroimage.
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We examined the neural representations of orthographic and phonological processing in children, while manipulating the consistency between orthographic and phonological information. Participants, ages 9-15, were scanned while performing rhyming and spelling judgments on pairs of visually presented words. The orthographic and phonological similarity between words in the pair was independently manipulated, resulting in four conditions. In the non-conflicting conditions, both orthography and phonology of the words were either (1) similar (lime-dime) or (2) different (staff-gain). In conflicting conditions, words had (3) similar phonology and different orthography (jazz-has) or (4) different phonology and similar orthography (pint-mint). The comparison between tasks resulted in greater activation for the rhyming task in bilateral inferior frontal gyri (BA 45/47), and greater activation for the spelling task in bilateral inferior/superior parietal lobules (BA 40/7), suggesting greater involvement of phonological and semantic processing in the rhyming task, and non-linguistic spatial processing in the spelling task. Conflicting conditions were more difficult in both tasks and resulted in greater activation in the above regions. The results suggest that when children encounter inconsistency between orthographic and phonological information they show greater engagement of both orthographic and phonological processing.Chou TL, Booth JR, Bitan T, Burman DD, Bigio JD, Cone NE, Lu D & Cao, F (in press). Developmental and skill effects on the neural correlates of semantic processing to visually presented words. Human Brain Mapping, 27, 915-924.
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Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to explore the neural correlates of semantic judgments to visual words in a group of 9- to 15-year-old children. Subjects were asked to indicate if word pairs were related in meaning. Consistent with previous findings in adults, children showed activation in bilateral inferior frontal gyri (BAs 47, 45) and left middle temporal gyrus (BA 21). Words with strong semantic association elicited significantly greater activation in bilateral inferior parietal lobules (BA 40), suggesting stronger integration of highly related semantic features. By contrast, words with weak semantic association elicited greater activation in left inferior frontal gyrus (BA 45) and middle temporal gyrus (BA 21), suggesting more difficult feature search and more extensive access to semantic representations. We also examined whether age and skill explained unique variance in the patterns of activation. Increasing age was correlated with greater activation in left middle temporal gyrus (BA 21) and inferior parietal lobule (BA 40), suggesting that older children have more elaborated semantic representations and more complete semantic integration processes, respectively. Decreasing age was correlated with activation in right superior temporal gyrus (BA 22) and decreasing accuracy was correlated with activation in right middle temporal gyrus (BA 21), suggesting the engagement of ancillary systems in the right hemisphere for younger and lower skill children.Booth JR, Lu D, Burman DD, Chou TL, Jin Z, Peng DL, Zhang L, Ding GS, Deng Y, Liu L (2006). Specialization of phonological and semantic processing in Chinese word reading. Cognitive Brain Research, 1071, 197-207.
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The purpose of this study was to examine the neuro-cognitive network for processing visual word forms in native Chinese speakers using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). In order to compare the processing of phonological and semantic representations, we developed parallel rhyming and meaning association judgment tasks that required explicit access and manipulation of these representations. Subjects showed activation in left inferior/middle frontal gyri, bilateral medial frontal gyri, bilateral middle occipital/fusiform gyri and bilateral cerebella for both the rhyming and meaning tasks. A direct comparison of the tasks revealed that the rhyming task showed more activation in the posterior dorsal region of the inferior/middle frontal gyrus (BA 9/44) and in the inferior parietal lobule (BA 40). The meaning task showed more activation in the anterior ventral region of the inferior/middle frontal gyrus (BA 47) and in the superior/middle temporal gyrus (BA 22,21). These findings are consistent with previous studies in English that suggest specialization of inferior frontal regions for the access and manipulation of phonological versus semantic representations, but also suggest that this specialization extends to the middle frontal gyrus for Chinese. These findings are also consistent with the suggestion that the left middle temporal gyrus is involved in representing semantic information and the left inferior parietal lobule is involved in mapping between orthographic and phonological representations.Chou TL, Booth JR, Burman DD, Bitan T, Bigio JD, Lu D & Cone NE (2006). Developmental changes in the neural correlates of semantic processing. Neuroimage, 29, 11-41-1149.
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Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to explore the neural correlates of semantic judgments in the auditory modality in a group of 9-15 year old children. Subjects were required to indicate if word pairs were related in meaning. Consistent with previous findings in adults, children showed activation in bilateral superior temporal gyri (BA 22) for recognizing spoken words as well as activations in bilateral inferior frontal gyri (BAs 47, 45) and left middle temporal gyrus (BA 21) for semantic processing. The neural substrates of semantic association and age differences were also investigated. Words with strong semantic association elicited significantly greater activation in the left inferior parietal lobule (BA 40), whereas words with weak semantic association elicited activation in left inferior frontal gyrus (BAs 47/45). Correlations with age were observed in the left middle temporal gyrus (BA 21) and the right inferior frontal gyrus (BA 47). The pattern of results for semantic association implies that the left inferior parietal lobule effectively integrates highly related semantic features and the left inferior frontal gyrus becomes more active for words that require a greater search for semantic associations. The developmental results suggest that older children recruit the right inferior frontal gyrus as they conduct a broader semantic search and the left middle temporal gyrus to provide more efficient access to semantic representations.Plaut DC & Booth JR (in press). More modeling but still no stages: Reply to Borowsky and Besner (2005). Psychological Review.
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Plaut and Booth (2000, Psychological Review, 107, 786-823) developed a distributed connectionist model of written word comprehension, and evaluated it against empirical findings on individual and developmental differences in semantic priming in visual lexical decision. Borowsky and Besner (in press, Psychological Review) raised a number of challenges for this model. First, the model was not shown capable of accurately distinguishing words from orthographically matched non-words. Second, its use of a semantic measure for performing lexical decision appears to be inconsistent with evidence of normal lexical decision in brain-damaged patients with semantic impairments. Third, the explanation offered for additive and interactive effects in the model appear to be incompatible with certain aspects of existing empirical findings on the joint effects of frequency, priming context and stimulus quality. In this reply, we demonstrate with additional modeling that none of these issues is problematic for the model.Blumenfeld, HK, Booth JR, Burman DD (in press). Differential prefrontal-temporal neural correlates of semantic processing in children. Brain and Language, 99, 226-235.
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This study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine brain-behavior correlations in a group of 16 children (9- to 12-year-olds). Activation was measured during a semantic judgment task presented in either the visual or auditory modality that required the individual to determine whether a final word was related in meaning to one of two previous words (e.g. found - tank - lost). The main finding was that higher performers (i.e. accuracy) were associated with more activation in posterior representational systems including the inferior and middle temporal gyri, whereas lower performers were associated with more activation in anterior regions including the inferior and middle frontal gyri. This pattern of results was interpreted as reflecting an elaborated semantic representational system in temporal areas for the high accuracy performers that allowed them to efficiently and accurately make meaning based judgments. The low accuracy performers may have an inaccurate or weakly interconnected semantic system that results in greater use of frontal areas in a feature selection process. Bitan T, Booth JR, Choy J, Burman DD, Gitelman DR & Mesulam MM (2005) Shifts of effective connectivity within a language network during rhyming and spelling. Journal of Neuroscience,25, 5397-5403.
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We used fMRI to examine task-specific modulations of effective connectivity within a left hemisphere language network during spelling and rhyming judgments on visually presented words. We identified sites showing task specific activations for rhyming in the lateral temporal cortex (LTC), and for spelling in the intraparietal sulcus (IPS). The inferior frontal (IFG) and fusiform gyri (FG) were engaged by both tasks. Dynamic causal modeling showed that each task preferentially strengthened modulatory influences converging upon its task specific site (LTC for rhyming, IPS for spelling). These remarkably selective and symmetrical findings demonstrate that the nature of the behavioral task dynamically shifts the locus of integration (or convergence) to the network component specialized for that task. Furthermore, they suggest that the role of the task-selective areas is to provide a differential synthesis of incoming information rather than providing differential control signals influencing the activity of other network components. Our findings also showed that switching tasks led to changes in the target area influenced by the IFG, suggesting that the IFG may play a pivotal role in setting the cognitive context for each task. We propose that task-dependent shifts in effective connectivity are likely to be mediated through top-down modulations from the IFG to the task-selective regions, in a way that differentially enhances their sensitivity to incoming word-form information. Booth JR & Burman DD (2005). Using neuro-imaging to test developmental models of reading acquisition. In H Catts & A Kamhi (Eds), The Connections Between Language and Reading Disabilities. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Mahwah, NJ.
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This chapter presented a series of experiments that examined developmental differences in the neuro-cognitive network for lexical processing in either the visual or auditory modality. The lexical tasks involved spelling, rhyming or meaning judgments that tapped into orthographic, phonological and semantic representations. In general, our research suggests that there is a developmental shift from an early reliance on semantics to a later reliance on orthographic and phonologic representations for rapid word recognition. The first main finding was that children, but not adults, showed activation in the middle temporal gyrus during the spelling and rhyming tasks in both modalities. Because previous research has implicated this region in meaning-based processing, our results suggest a greater reliance on semantics in children during lexical processing. The second main finding was that adults, but not children, showed activation in the fusiform gyrus during the auditory tasks. Because the fusiform gyrus has been implicated in orthographic processing, our results suggest greater interactive processing between phonology and orthography for the adults. The third main finding was that adults, but not children, showed greater activation during the cross-modal as compared to the intra-modal lexical tasks in the neuro-cognitive networks involved in mapping between orthographic and phonological representations. The visual rhyming task, which required conversion from orthography to phonology, produced activation for adults in the supramarginal/angular gyrus and in the superior temporal gyrus. The auditory spelling task, which required conversion from phonology to orthography, produced activation for adults in the supramarginal/angular gyrus and in the fusiform gyrus. These developmental results are consistent with developmental models of reading and spelling that postulate single- rather than dual-routes for converting between representational systems. Our research shows how behavioral and brain activation measures can be used in conjunction to test developmental models of reading acquisition. Booth JR, Burman DD, Meyer JR, Zhang L, Trommer B, Davenport N, Li W, Parrish TR, Gitelman DR & Mesulam MM (2005). Larger deficits in brain networks for response inhibition than for visual selective attention in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 46, 94-111.
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Brain activation differences between 12 control and 12 attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) children (9 to 12-year-olds) were examined on two cognitive tasks during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Visual selective attention was measured with the visual search of a conjunction target (red triangle) in a field of distracters and response inhibition was measured with a go no-go task. There were limited group differences in the selective attention task with control children showing significantly greater intensity of activation in a small area of the superior parietal lobule region of interest. There were large group differences in the response inhibition task with control children showing significantly greater intensity of activation in fronto-striatal regions of interest including the inferior, middle, superior and medial frontal gyri as well as the caudate nucleus and globus pallidus. The widespread hypoactivity for the ADHD children on the go no-go task is consistent with the hypothesis that response inhibition is a central deficit in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Booth JR, Burman DD, Meyer JR, Zhang L, Gitelman DR, Parrish TR & Mesulam MM (2004). Development of brain mechanisms for processing orthographic and phonological representations. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 16, 1234-1249.
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Developmental differences in the neuro-cognitive networks for lexical processing were examined in 15 adults and 15 children (9- to 12-year-olds) using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The lexical tasks involved spelling and rhyming judgments in either the visual or auditory modality. These lexical tasks were compared to non-linguistic control tasks involving judgments of line patterns or tone sequences. The first main finding was that adults showed greater activation than children during the cross-modal lexical tasks in a region proposed to be involved in mapping between orthographic and phonological representations. The visual rhyming task, which required conversion from orthography to phonology, produced greater activation for adults in the angular gyrus. The auditory spelling task, which required the conversion from phonology to orthography, also produced greater activation for adults in the angular gyrus. The greater activation for adults suggests they may have a more elaborated posterior heteromodal system for mapping between representational systems. The second main finding was that adults showed greater activation than children during the intra-modal lexical tasks in the angular gyrus. The visual spelling and auditory rhyming did not require conversion between orthography and phonology for correct performance but the adults showed greater activation in a system implicated for this mapping. The greater activation for adults suggests that they have more interactive convergence between representational systems during lexical processing. Booth JR, Burman DD, Meyer JR, Trommer B, Davenport N, Parrish TR, Gitelman DR & Mesulam MM (2004). Brain-behavior correlation in children depends on the neuro-cognitive network. Human Brain Mapping, 23, 99-108.
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This study examined brain-behavior correlations in 12 children (9.3 to 11.7-year-olds) during a selective attention task that required the visual search of a conjunction of features and during a response inhibition task that required the inhibition of a pre-potent response during no-go blocks. We found that the association between performance in these tasks and brain activation as measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) depended on the neuro-cognitive network. Specifically, better performance during the no-go task was associated with greater activation in the response inhibition network including the prefrontal cortex and basal ganglia. In contrast, better performance during the visual search task was associated with less activation in the selective attention network including superior parietal lobule and lateral premotor cortex. These results show that the relation of performance to the magnitude of neural activation is complex and may display differential relationships based on the cognitive domain, anatomical region and perhaps also developmental stage. Booth JR, Burman DD, Meyer JR, Zhang L, Trommer B, Davenport N, Li W, Parrish TR, Gitelman DR & Mesulam MM (2003). Neural development of selective attention and response inhibition. NeuroImage, 20, 737-751.
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Brain activation differences between 12 children (9 to 12-year-olds) and 12 adults (20 to 30-year-olds) were examined on two cognitive tasks during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Spatial selective attention was measured with the visual search for a conjunction target (red triangle) in a field of distracters and response inhibition was measured with a go no-go task. There were small developmental differences in the selective attention task, with children showing greater activation than adults in the anterior cingulate and thalamus. There were large developmental differences in the response inhibition task, with children showing greater activation than adults in a fronto-striatal network including middle cingulate, medial frontal gyrus, medial aspects of bilateral superior frontal gyrus, and the caudate nucleus on the left. Children also showed greater bilateral activation for the response inhibition task in posterior cingulate, thalamus and the hippocampo-amygdaloid region. The extensive developmental differences on the response inhibition task are consistent with the prolonged maturation of the fronto-striatal network. Booth JR, Burman DD, Meyer JR, Zhang L, Choy J, Gitelman DR, Parrish TR & Mesulam MM (2003). Modality-specific and -independent developmental differences in the neural substrate for lexical processing. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 16, 383-405.
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The neuroanatomy of developmental differences in lexical processing was examined with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in 15 adults and 15 children. We examined modality specific and modality independent (auditory and visual presentation) patterns of brain activation during spelling, rhyming and meaning judgment tasks. A direct comparison of the modalities revealed that adults showed a large area of activation in the fusiform gyrus for visual word forms and in the superior temporal gyrus for auditory word forms. In contrast, the modality comparison for children revealed no activation in the fusiform gyrus for visual word forms and modest activation in the superior temporal gyrus for auditory word forms. There were also modality independent developmental differences with adults showing more activation than children in the inferior frontal gyrus for the spelling, rhyming and meaning tasks. These results suggest that development is characterized by increasing involvement of the inferior frontal gyrus in lexical processing and by the specialization of unimodal regions for visual and auditory word forms. Booth JR, Burman DD, Meyer JR, Gitelman DR, Parrish TB & Mesulam MM (2003). The relation between brain activation and lexical performance. Human Brain Mapping, 19, 155-169.
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Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to determine whether performance on lexical tasks was correlated with cerebral activation patterns. We found that such relationships did exist and that their anatomical distribution reflected the neuro-cognitive processing routes required by the task. Better performance on intra-modal tasks (determining if visual words were spelled the same or if auditory words rhymed) was correlated with more activation in unimodal regions corresponding to the modality of sensory input, namely the fusiform gyrus (BA 37) for written words and the superior temporal gyrus (BA 22) for spoken words. Better performance in tasks requiring cross-modal conversions (determining if auditory words were spelled the same or if visual words rhymed), on the other hand, was correlated with more activation in posterior heteromodal regions, including the supramarginal gyrus (BA 40) and the angular gyrus (BA 39). Better performance in these cross-modal tasks was also correlated with greater activation in unimodal regions corresponding to the target modality of the conversion process (i.e. fusiform gyrus for auditory spelling and superior temporal gyrus for visual rhyming). In contrast, performance on the auditory spelling task was inversely correlated with activation in the superior temporal gyrus possibly reflecting a greater emphasis on the properties of the perceptual input rather than on the relevant transmodal conversions. Booth JR, Burman DD, Meyer JR, Gitelman DR, Parrish TB & Mesulam MM (2002). Modality independence of word comprehension. Human Brain Mapping, 16, 251-261.
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Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to examine the functional anatomy of word comprehension in the auditory and visual modalities of presentation. We asked our subjects to determine if word pairs were semantically associated (e.g., table, chair) and compared this to a reference task where they were asked to judge whether word pairs rhymed (e.g., bank, tank). This comparison showed task-specific and modality-independent activation for semantic processing in the heteromodal cortices of the left inferior frontal gyrus (BA 46, 47) and left middle temporal gyrus (BA 21). There were also modality-specific activations in the fusiform gyrus (BA 37) for written words and in the superior temporal gyrus (BA 22) for spoken words. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that word form recognition (lexical encoding) occurs in unimodal cortices and that heteromodal brain regions in the anterior as well as posterior components of the language network subserve word comprehension (semantic decoding). Booth JR, Burman DD, Meyer JR, Gitelman DR, Parrish TB & Mesulam MM (2002). Functional anatomy of intra- and cross-modal lexical tasks. Neuroimage, 16, 7-22.
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Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to examine lexical processing in normal adults (20-35 years). Two tasks required only intra-modal processing (spelling judgments with visual input and rhyming judgments with auditory input) and two tasks required cross-modal processing between phonologic and orthographic representations (spelling judgments with auditory input and rhyming judgments with visual input). Each task led to greater activation in the unimodal association area concordant with the modality of input, namely fusiform gyrus (BA 19, 37) for written words and superior temporal gyrus (BA 22, 42) for spoken words. Cross-modal tasks generated greater activation in posterior heteromodal regions including the supramarginal and angular gyri (BA 40, 39). Cross-modal tasks generated additional activation in unimodal areas representing the target of conversion, superior temporal gyrus for visual rhyming and fusiform gyrus for auditory spelling. Our findings suggest that the fusiform gyrus processes orthographic word forms, the superior temporal gyrus processes phonologic word forms, and posterior heteromodal regions are involved in the conversion between orthography and phonology. Booth JR, Perfetti CA (2002). Onset and rime structure influences naming but not early word identification in children and adults. Scientific Studies of Reading, 6, 1-23.
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Four experiments assessed the role of the onset-rime structure in visual word recognition. If the onset-rime structure is important for recognition, then primes or masks with 2 overlapping letters at the beginning or at the end of 4-letter words should facilitate recognition of consonant-vowel (CV) CCVC-structure words more than the recognition of CVCC words. Using the brief identification paradigm to tap into early word identification processes (14-56 msec), Exps 1 through 3 (n=168--combined Ss for Exps 1-3) showed no evidence for the importance of onset-rime in children (2nd through 6th graders) or adults. However, these experiments show that end masks produced higher identification accuracy than begin masks, suggesting that early word identification involves a serial component. Exp 4 (n=135) with adults replicated the effects of J. A. Bowey (1990) by showing that onset-rime structure is important in oral reading. Begin and end primes facilitated the naming of CCVC words more than CVCC words, suggesting that the onset-rime structure may be an important unit in phonologic output. The begin, end, and control masks or rimes for the CCVC and CVCC target words sorted alphabetically are appended. Booth JR, Burman DD, Van Santen FW, Harasaki Y, Gitelman DR, Parrish TB & Mesulam MM (2001). The development of specialized brain systems for reading and oral-language. Child Neuropsychology, 7, 119-141.
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Functional MRI (fMRI) was used to examine differences between 5 male children (aged 9-12 yrs) and 4 male adults (aged 21-31 yrs) in the distribution of brain activation during word processing. Orthographic, phonologic, semantic and syntactic tasks were used in both the auditory and visual modalities. The 2 principal results were consistent with the hypothesis that development is characterized by increasing specialization. The 1st analysis compared activation in children versus adults separately for each modality. Adults show more activation in the unimodal visual areas of middle temporal gyrus and fusiform gyrus for processing written word forms and in the unimodal auditory areas of superior temporal gyrus for processing spoken word forms. Children show more activation for written word forms in posterior heteromodal regions. The 2nd analysis compared activation in the visual versus auditory modality separately for children and adults. Children show overlap of activation in brain regions for the visual and auditory tasks. Adults show selective activation in the unimodal auditory areas of superior temporal gyrus when processing spoken word forms and selective activation in the unimodal visual areas of middle temporal gyrus and fusiform gyrus when processing written word forms. Booth JR, Burman DD, Van Santen F, Harasaki Y, Gitelman DR, Parrish TB & Mesulam MM (2001). Developmental differences in brain systems for reading. Croatian Review of Rehabilitation Research, 37, 37-52.
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Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to examine the distribution of brain activation during 4 visual word-processing tasks performed by children (9-12 yrs old) and adults (21-31 yrs old). The 4 tasks were designed to emphasize orthographic, phonological, semantic, and syntactic processes. Adults performed these tasks more efficiently than the children, who were significantly less accurate in their performance. The patterns of brain activation in the 2 groups suggest that efficient processing of visual word forms in adults results in part from 3 trends. (1) A shift in activation from multimodal areas (Wernicke's area in children) to activation of unimodal association areas (fusiform cortex in adults). (2) More restricted interactions between cortical areas in adults as the areas involved in linguistic processes become more specialized and efficient. (3) Overlap of areas associated with high accuracy and quick reaction times in adults as word representations become more directly accessible to areas involved in preparing a behavioral response. These trends reflect plasticity in neural processing during maturation, which effectively frees resources for processing unfamiliar stimuli as the ability to respond quickly and accurately to familiar stimuli improves. Booth, JR & Burman, DD (2001). Development and disorders of neuro-cognitive systems for oral-language and reading. Learning Disabilities Quarterly, 24, 205-215.
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There are four goals of this article. First, a tentative neurocognitive model of oral language and reading is outlined. Second, our recent functional magnetic resonance imaging studies (fMRI) on the development of oral language and reading are briefly reviewed with reference to this neurocognitive model. Third, brain-imaging research on dyslexia is discussed in light of the neurocognitive model. Fourth, research on the plasticity of neural systems and the implication of this plasticity for studying normative development and disorders is presented. Booth JR, MacWhinney B, Thulborn KR, Sacco K, Voyvodic J & Feldman HM (2001). Developmental and lesion effects in brain activation during sentence comprehension and mental rotation. Developmental Neuropsychology, 18, 139-169.
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Examined the development of neurocognitive networks in auditory sentence comprehension and mental rotation of alphanumeric stimuli. Brain activation patterns were measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in 5 adults (aged 20-28 yrs), 7 children (aged 9-12 yrs), and 6 pediatric patients (aged 9-12 yrs) with perinatal strokes or periventricular hemorrhages. Healthy children and adults activated similar neurocognitive networks, but there were developmental differences in activity distribution. In the sentence task, children showed more activation in the inferior visual area suggesting an imagery rather than linguistic strategy for sentence processing. Consistent use of a sentence comprehension strategy (correct or incorrect vs chance) was associated with greater activation in the inferior frontal area (Broca's) in children and pediatric Ss. In the mental rotation task, healthy adults showed more activation in the superior parietal and middle frontal areas and less activation in the supramarginal gyrus, suggesting adults were primarily engaged in visual-spatial manipulation and less engaged in the recognition of noncanonical views of stimuli. Pediatric Ss showed patterns of activation consistent with organization of cognitive processing into homologous areas of the contralateral hemisphere. Plaut DC & Booth JR (2000). Individual and developmental differences in semantic priming: Empirical findings and computational support for a single-mechanism account of lexical processing. Psychological Review, 107, 786-823.
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Existing accounts of single-word semantic priming phenomena incorporate multiple mechanisms, such as spreading activation, expectancy-based processes, and postlexical semantic matching. The authors provide empirical and computational support for a single-mechanism distributed network account. Previous studies have found greater semantic priming for low- than for high-frequency target words as well as inhibition following unrelated primes only at long stimulus-onset asynchronies (SOAs). A series of experiments examined the modulation of these effects by individual differences in age or perceptual ability. Third-grade, 6th-grade, and college students performed a lexical-decision task on high- and low-frequency target words preceded by related, unrelated, and nonword primes. Greater priming for low-frequency targets was exhibited only by participants with high perceptual ability. Moreover, unlike the college students, the children showed no inhibition even at the long SOA. The authors provide an account of these results in terms of the properties of distributed network models and support this account with an explicit computational simulation. Booth JR, MacWhinney B & Harasaki Y (2000). Developmental differences in visual and auditory processing of complex sentences. Child Development, 4, 979-1001.
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250 children (aged 8-11 yrs) were given a word-by-word sentence task in both the visual and auditory modes. The sentences included an object relative clause, a subject relative clause, or a conjoined verb phrase. Each sentence was followed by a true-false question, testing the subject of either the 1st or 2nd verb. Ss were also given 2 memory span measures: digit span and reading span. High digit span Ss slowed down more at the transition from the main to the relative clause than did the low digit span Ss. The findings suggest the presence of a U-shaped learning pattern for on-line processing of restrictive relative clauses. Off-line accuracy scores showed different patterns for good comprehenders and poor comprehenders (PCMs). PCMs answered the 2nd verb questions at levels that were consistently below chance. Their answers were based on an incorrect local attachment strategy that treated the 2nd noun as the subject of the 2nd verb. Interestingly, low memory span PCMs used the local attachment strategy less consistently than high memory span PCMs, and all PCMs used this strategy less consistently for harder than for easier sentences. Booth JR, Perfetti CA, MacWhinney B & Hunt SB (2000). The association of rapid temporal perception with orthographic and phonological processing in reading impaired children and adults. Scientific Studies of Reading, 4, 101-132.
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Adults and children with reading impairment (N = 67) were administered a rapid auditory task, a rapid visual task, and a battery of orthographic and phonological tasks. The results support a differential development model of reading disability that argues that deficits in rapid auditory ability in children are primarily associated with problems in phonological processing, whereas deficits in rapid visual ability in children are primarily associated with problems in orthographic processing (M. E. Farmer & R. M. Klein, 1996). In contrast to the children, the adults showed a strong relation between rapid auditory ability and both orthographic and phonological processing. These results suggest that continued deficits in auditory ability may have a pervasive and negative impact on word processing in general. In addition, adults did not exhibit a relation between rapid visual ability and orthographic-processing problems. Orthographic-processing deficits may result from a reading delay condition that can be overcome with increased reading exposure (M. W. Harm & M. S. Seidenberg, 1999). Booth JR, MacWhinney B, Thulborn KR, Sacco K, Voyvodic J & Feldman HM (1999). Functional organization of activation patterns in children: Whole brain fMRI imaging during three different cognitive tasks. Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry, 23, 669-682.
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Examined issues of plasticity and localization in a study in which patterns of brain activation were measured with whole brain echo-planar functional magnetic resonance imaging at 3.0 Tesla in 6 healthy children, aged 9-12 yrs, and in a 12-yr-old with a left-hemisphere encephalomalacic lesion as sequellae from early strokes. Three cognitive tasks were used: auditory sentence comprehension, verb generation to line drawing and mental rotation of alphanumeric stimuli. There was evidence for significant bilateral activation in all three cognitive tasks for the healthy children. Their patterns of activation were consistent with previous functional imaging studies with adults (e.g., B. Alivisatos and M. Petrides, 1997). The child with the left-hemisphere stroke showed evidence of homologous organization in the nondamaged hemispbere. Booth JR, Perfetti CA & MacWhinney B (1999). Quick, automatic, and general activation of orthographic and phonological representations in young readers. Developmental Psychology, 35, 3-19.
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Second through 6th graders were presented with nonword primes (orthographic, pseudohomophone, and control) and target words displayed for durations (30 and 60 ms) that were brief enough to prevent complete processing. Word reading skills were assessed by 3 word and nonword naming tasks. Good readers exhibited more orthographic priming than poor readers at both durations and more pseudohomophone priming at the short duration only. This suggests that good readers activate letter and phonemic information more efficiently than poor readers. Good readers also exhibited an equal amount of priming at both durations, whereas poor readers showed greater priming at the longer duration. This suggests that activation was not under strategic control. Finally, priming was reliable for both high- and low-frequency targets. This suggests that readers activate consistent information regardless of target word characteristics. Thus, quick, automatic, and general activation of orthographic and phonological information in skilled readers results from the precision and redundancy of their lexical representations. Epelboim J, Booth JR, Ashkenazy R, Taleghani A & Steinman RM (1997). Fillers and spaces in text: Evidence for the importance of word recognition during reading. Vision Research, 37, 2899-2914.
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Skilled readers read continuous stories aloud and silently. Three factors were varied: (1) position of the fillers in the text (at the beginning, the end, or surrounding each word); (2) the presence or absence of spaces in the text; and (3) the effect of the type of filler on word recognition (from greatest effect to least effect: Latin letters, Greek letters, digits and shaded boxes). The effect of fillers on reading depended more on the type of filler than on the presence of spaces. The greater effect the fillers had on word recognition, the more they slowed reading. Surrounding each word with digits or Greek letters slowed reading as much as filling spaces with these symbols. Surrounding each word with randomly chosen letters, while preserving spaces, slowed reading by 44-75%, as much as, or more than, removing spaces from normal text. Removing spaces from text with Latin-letter fillers slowed reading by only 10-20% more. It is concluded that fillers in text disrupt reading by affecting word recognition directly, without necessarily affecting the eye movement pattern. Booth JR, Hall WS, Robison GC & Kim SY (1997). Acquisition of mental state verbs by 2- to 5-year-old children. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 26, 581-603.
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Examined the production of the cognitive internal state word know by 4 2-5 yr old children and their parents. The levels of meaning of cognitive words can be categorized hierarchically along the dimensions of conceptual difficulty and abstractedness. Results indicate that children and their parents expressed low levels of meaning less frequently, whereas they expressed high levels of meaning more frequently as a function of age. The children's use of know was also correlated positively with (1) their number of different words produced, suggesting that cognitive words are related to more general semantic processes, and (2) with parental use of those same cognitive words, suggesting that parental linguistic input may be an important mechanism in cognitive word acquisition. Finally, young children tended to use know more to refer to themselves than to refer to others, whereas their parents tended to use know equally to refer to self and others. Epelboim J, Booth JR & Steinman RM (1996). Much ado about nothing: The place of space in text. Vision Research, 36, 465-470.
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Responds to comments by K. Rayner and A. Pollatsek (1996) concerning the J. Epelboim et al (1994) argument that unspaced text is relatively easy to read. The conclusion of Rayner and Pollatsek that spaces between words constitute the primary cue used to guide saccadic eye movements during reading and that, in the absence of spaces, readers resort to a different and less effective oculomotor strategy is argued to be incorrect. The data of Epelboim et al indicate that the targets for reading saccades are the words themselves rather than peripheral groups of unprocessed letters delimited by spaces. The study of Epelboim et al was novel in that it used a unique and exceptionally accurate and precise eye movement monitor to examine both global and local characteristics of Ss' eye movements as they read. Booth JR & Hall WS (1995). Development of the understanding of the polysemous mental state verb "know". Cognitive Development, 10, 529-549.
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Investigated 19 3-, 21 6-, 25 9-, and 17 12-yr-olds' understanding of different levels of meaning of the cognitive verb know as defined by the W. S. Hall et al (see PA, Vol 75:26120) abstractness and conceptual difficulty hierarchy. Cognitive verb knowledge (CVK) increased with development, and certain low levels of meaning were mastered before certain high levels of meaning irrespective of the medium of presentation (video-taped skits or audio-taped stories). However, Ss developed an understanding of low levels of meaning (LOM) at a more rapid rate than understanding of high LOM. This resulted in a more differentiated and hierarchical CVK in older Ss. The audio-taped stories were more difficult than the video-taped skits, and both tasks were significantly correlated with a standardized vocabulary measure for all ages except the 3-yr-olds. The implications of this study and others for a model of the cognitive-verb lexicon are discussed. Booth JR & Hall WS (1994). Role of the cognitive internal state lexicon in reading comprehension. Journal of Educational Psychology, 86, 413-422.
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Cognitive internal state words (e.g., think and know) may be central to accessing, monitoring, and transforming our internal states, processes that seem to be critical for high-level text understanding (e.g., E. K. Scholnick and W. S. Hall, 1991). Fifth graders, 10th graders, and college undergraduates participated in this study of the importance of cognitive words in skilled reading comprehension. Positive correlations with cognitive word knowledge were significantly higher for verbal (vocabulary and reading comprehension) than for quantitative achievement percentiles. The order of acquisition of cognitive words depended on a complex interaction among frequency of the replacement cognitive word in established word frequency counts, the level of meaning as determined by the R. E. Frank and W. S. Hall (1991) conceptual difficulty hierarchy and whether the cognitive word was a cognate of think or know. Epelboim J, Booth JR & Steinman RM (1994). Reading unspaced text: Implications for theories of reading eye movements. Vision Research, 34, 1735-1766.
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Investigated a reader's saccades by recording eye movements while 5 Ss read spaced and unspaced passages both silently and aloud. Modest increases in fixation durations and decreases in overall reading speed were observed when unspaced texts were read; Ss read unspaced texts with the same level of comprehension and percentage of regressions as spaced texts. The only global eye movement parameter that changed appreciably when spaces were removed was progressive saccade length; they were shorter in unspaced texts. The observed decrease in progressive saccade length tended to be proportional to an increase in text density. A model that could explain reading spaced texts could also explain reading unspaced texts with only a change of saccade length. Current emphasis on spaces as guides to reading eye movements must be reconsidered. Stevenson HW, Chen C & Booth JR (1990). Influences of schooling and urban rural residence on gender differences in cognitive abilities and academic achievement. Sex Roles, 23, 535-551.
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Analyzed gender differences among 1,151 schooled and nonschooled Quechua children (aged 6-22 yrs) who lived in the city or in remote rural environments in Peru by administering a battery of tests that assessed reading and mathematics achievement and tapped a broad range of cognitive functions. 51% of Ss were female. Large differences in cognitive functioning were associated with attendance at school, grade in school, age, and urban/rural residence. Gender accounted for less than 5% of the variance in Ss' performance on cognitive and academic tasks. Gender effects declined with increased amount of schooling. This was reflected in interactions involving gender and schooling for Ss who did not attend school or were in the 1st grade. Results present a complicated picture of various interactional effects of task, location, age, and schooling on the detected gender differences in cognitive abilities and academic achievement.
