Qing-n Li

Orthographic neighborhood size effect in Chinese character naming: Orthographic and phonological activations

The present study examined the effects of orthographic neighborhood (N) size on the cognitive processes underlying Chinese character reading. Previous research has shown increasing N size facilitates word naming and recognition performance in alphabetic languages. Experiment 1 revealed that a large N size was associated with a general inhibition of processes underlying character reading, in contrast to previous findings with alphabetic languages. This inhibitory effect was influenced by regularity and consistency. Experiment 2 sought to assess the effects of higher-frequency neighbors on character naming performance. The results revealed that higher-frequency neighbors with different pronunciation to the target interfered with the phonological retrieval of targets. We propose that this type of interference may have caused the N size effect observed in Experiment 1. The results of Experiment 3 revealed that a large N size facilitated target naming in the absence of higher-frequency neighbors. The current results shed light on the processes underlying character naming, and we propose possible cognitive mechanisms of the N size effect on Chinese character naming.

Neural correlates of the orthographic neighborhood size effect in Chinese

Word recognition research with alphabetical scripts has revealed a facilitatory neighborhood size effect, whereby naming of words with more orthographic neighbors is faster than that of words with fewer neighbors. Preliminary behavioral evidence in Chinese revealed both facilitatory and inhibitory neighborhood size effects, depending on whether there are higher‐frequency neighbors (HFNs) than the target. This functional magnetic resonance imaging study examined the neural substrates of the neighborhood size effect with silent naming. Neighborhood size and the HFN factor were factorially manipulated. Behavioral results replicated previous findings showing that larger neighborhood size facilitated naming in the absence of HFNs, but inhibited naming in their presence. Imaging results identified greater activation in the left middle frontal gyrus for small than larger neighborhood size, and bilateral inferior frontal activations for the with‐HFN condition as compared with the without‐HFN condition. Critically, there was an interaction in the right middle occipital gyrus showing greater activation for large than for small neighborhood size in the absence of HFNs but no neighborhood size effect in their presence. The results support a proposal that, in addition to a facilitatory contribution from orthographic activation of neighborhoods, naming is also affected by whether there are higher‐frequency neighbors, particularly in scripts with deep orthography, where orthographically similar words can be pronounced very differently.

The Characteristics of Chinese Orthographic Neighborhood Size Effect for Developing Readers

Orthographic neighborhood size (N size) effect in Chinese character naming has been studied in adults. In the present study, we aimed to explore the developmental characteristics of Chinese N size effect. One hundred and seventeen students (40 from the 3rd grade with mean age of 9 years; 40 from the 5th grade with mean age of 11 years; 37 from the 7th grade with mean age of 13 years) were recruited in the study. A naming task of Chinese characters was adopted to elucidate N-size- effect development. Reaction times and error rates were recorded. Results showed that children in the 3rd grade named characters from large neighborhoods faster than named those from small neighborhoods, revealing a facilitatory N size effect; the 5th graders showed null N size effect; while the 7th graders showed an inhibitory N size effect, with longer reaction times for the characters from large neighborhoods than for those from small neighborhoods. The change from facilitation to inhibition of neighborhood size effect across grades suggested the transition from broadly tuned to finely tuned lexical representation in reading development, and the possible inhibition from higher frequency neighbors for higher graders.

A Potential Role of Auditory Induced Modulations in Primary Visual Cortex.

A biologically relevant event is normally the source of multiple, typically correlated, sensory inputs. To optimize perception of the outer world, our brain combines the independent sensory measurements into a coherent estimate. However, if sensory information is not readily available for every pertinent sense, the brain tries to acquire additional information via covert/overt orienting behaviors or uses internal knowledge to modulate sensory sensitivity based on prior expectations. Cross-modal functional modulation of low-level auditory areas due to visual input has been often described; however, less is known about auditory modulations of primary visual cortex. Here, based on some recent evidence, we propose that an unexpected auditory signal could trigger a reflexive overt orienting response towards its source and concomitantly increase the primary visual cortex sensitivity at the locations where the object is expected to enter the visual field. To this end, we propose that three major functionally specific pathways are employed in parallel. A stream orchestrated by the superior colliculus is responsible for the overt orienting behavior, while direct and indirect (via higher-level areas) projections from A1 to V1 respectively enhance spatiotemporal sensitivity and facilitate object detectability.

Measuring single neuron visual receptive field sizes by fMRI

The non-invasive measurements of neuronal receptive field (RF) properties in-vivo allow a detailed understanding of brain organization as well as its plasticity by longitudinal following of potential changes. Visual RFs measured invasively by electrophysiology in animal models have traditionally provided a great extent of our current knowledge about the visual brain and its disorders. Voxel based estimates of population RF (pRF) by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in humans revolutionized the field and have been used extensively in numerous studies. However, current methods cannot estimate single-neuron RF sizes as they reflect large populations of neurons with individual RF scatter. Here, we introduce a new approach to estimate RF size using spatial frequency selectivity to checkerboard patterns. This method allowed us to obtain non-invasive, single-unit, RF estimates in human V1 for the first time. These estimates were significantly smaller compared to prior pRF methods. Further, fMRI and electrophysiological experiments in non-human primates demonstrated an exceptional match validating the approach.

Neural Cognitive Correlates of Orthographic Neighborhood Size Effect for Children During Chinese Naming

A lot of researchers are concerned of orthographic neighborhood (N) effect (Andrews, 1989, 1992; Carreiras et al., 1997; Laxon et al., 1988; Peereman & Content, 1995; Sears et al., 2006), which can reflect how the potential word candidates with similar orthography affect the word naming task. In alphabetic writing systems, orthographic neighborhood refers to a word pool, which is consisted by changing one letter of a given word while keeping other letters unchanged (Coltheart et al., 1977). Behavioral researches with naming tasks have reported a facilitatory effect of N size (Andrews, 1989, 1992; Carreiras et al., 1997; Peereman & Content, 1995; Sears et al., 1995), which the presence of many orthographic neighbors facilities phonological retrieval of the target word, and such facilitation would be more prominent for low-frequency words (Andrews, 1989, 1992; Peereman & Content, 1995). This large N advantage is also found as orthographic distinctiveness effect in memory (Glanc & Greene, 2007; 2009). Modeling researches suggested that the facilitation of large N arises from the overlapping phonemes of their neighbors (Coltheart et al., 2001) and the feedback activations from orthographic units to feature units strengthen the phonological retrieval (Reynolds & Besner, 2002). Recently, Fiebach et al. (2007) examine the neural mechanisms of N size effect using fMRI. Their results demonstrated the interactions of lexicality and N size in mid-dorsolateral and medial prefrontal cortex, suggesting domain general processes during word recognition.