Hierarchical Coding of Letter Strings in the Ventral Stream: Dissecting the Inner Organization of the Visual Word-Form System
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Visual word recognition has been proposed to rely on a hierarchy of increasingly complex neuronal detectors, from individual letters to bigrams and morphemes. We used fMRI to test whether such a hierarchy is present in the left occipitotemporal cortex, at the site of the visual word-form area, and with an anterior-to-posterior progression. We exposed adult readers to (1) false-font strings; (2) strings of infrequent letters; (3) strings of frequent letters but rare bigrams; (4) strings with frequent bigrams but rare quadrigrams; (5) strings with frequent quadrigrams; (6) real words. A gradient of selectivity was observed through the entire span of the occipitotemporal cortex, with activation becoming more selective for higher-level stimuli toward the anterior fusiform region. A similar gradient was also seen in left inferior frontoinsular cortex. Those gradients were asymmetrical in favor of the left hemisphere. We conclude that the left occipitotemporal visual word-form area, far from being a homogeneous structure, presents a high degree of functional and spatial hierarchical organization which must result from a tuning process during reading acquisition.
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Orthographic processing proceeds in a posterior-anterior sweep through left fusiform gyrus, with increased location-invariance and increased sensitivity to orthographic structure.
“The evidence at present suggests that orthographic processing proceeds in a posterior–anterior sweep through left fusiform gyrus, with an increase in location-invariance (Dehaene et al., 2004) accompanied by increased sensitivity to orthographic structure (Vinckier et al., 2007).”
From A Dual-Route Approach to Orthographic Processing (2011) · cites this paper as Vinckier et al., 2007
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Cites
Language‐specific tuning of visual cortex? Functional properties of the Visual Word Form Area
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“It is compatible with the conclusion that the orthographic regularity of letter strings, rather than their lexical status, is the relevant variable for this region (Binder et al., 2006; Cohen et al., 2002; Dehaene et al., 2005).”
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RETRACTED: The visual word form area is organized according to orthography
Braet, W., Wagemans, J., & Op de Beeck, H. P. (2012) · NeuroImage · doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.10.032 · Cited by 27 · see citing works
Retracted
- Authors
- Vinckier, F., Dehaene, S., Jobert, A., Dubus, J. P., Sigman, M., & Cohen, L.
- Affiliations
- Inserm (FR)
- Université Paris-Sud (FR)
- Université Pierre-et-Marie-Curie (FR)
- Corresponding author
- Cohen, Laurent
- Venue
- Neuron
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2007-07
- Volume
- 55
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 143-156
- ISSN
- 0896-6273 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2116945806
- Cited by
- 717
- References
- 5
- Citations by year
- 2026: 23 · 2025: 35 · 2024: 42 · 2023: 26 · 2022: 26 · 2021: 40 · 2020: 40 · 2019: 44 · 2018: 37 · 2017: 32 · 2016: 33 · 2015: 50 · 2014: 49 · 2013: 40 · 2012: 51
- FWCI
- 60.95
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- www.elsevier.com/tdm/userlicense/1.0/ (tdm)
- www.elsevier.com/legal/tdmrep-license (tdm)
- www.elsevier.com/open-access/userlicense/1.0/ (vor, 2239 d)
- doi.org/10.15223/policy-017 (stm-asf)
- doi.org/10.15223/policy-037 (stm-asf)
- doi.org/10.15223/policy-012 (stm-asf)
- doi.org/10.15223/policy-029 (stm-asf)
- doi.org/10.15223/policy-004 (stm-asf)
- Locations
- Neuron (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- CONICET Digital (CONICET) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
- Funders
- Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale
- Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives
- Human Frontier Science Program
- Agence Nationale de la Recherche
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Reading and Literacy Development
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
- Keywords
- visual word recognition, hierarchical coding, letter frequency, bigrams, fusiform gyrus, ventral stream, hemispheric lateralization, reading acquisition
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Cerebral Cortex, Female, Frontal Lobe, Humans, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted, Functional Laterality, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Nerve Net, Occipital Lobe, Photic Stimulation, Reading, Temporal Lobe, Recognition, Psychology
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