The what, when, where, and how of visual word recognition

Manuel Carreiras*, Blair C. Armstrong, Manuel Perea, Ram Frost

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

281 Scopus citations

Abstract

A long-standing debate in reading research is whether printed words are perceived in a feedforward manner on the basis of orthographic information, with other representations such as semantics and phonology activated subsequently, or whether the system is fully interactive and feedback from these representations shapes early visual word recognition. We review recent evidence from behavioral, functional magnetic resonance imaging, electroencephalography, magnetoencephalography, and biologically plausible connectionist modeling approaches, focusing on how each approach provides insight into the temporal flow of information in the lexical system. We conclude that, consistent with interactive accounts, higher-order linguistic representations modulate early orthographic processing. We also discuss how biologically plausible interactive frameworks and coordinated empirical and computational work can advance theories of visual word recognition and other domains (e.g., object recognition).

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)90-98
Number of pages9
JournalTrends in Cognitive Sciences
Volume18
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 2014

Keywords

  • Computational modeling
  • Feedback versus feedforward information
  • Neural connectivity
  • Orthographic processing
  • Visual word form area
  • Visual word recognition

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