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Cited by 1,305Reading and Literacy DevelopmentNeurobiology of Language and BilingualismFace Recognition and Perception

Cerebral mechanisms of word masking and unconscious repetition priming

Dehaene, Stanislas, Naccache, Lionel, Cohen, Laurent, Bihan, Denis Le, Mangin, Jean-François, Poline, Jean-Baptiste, Rivière, Denis·2001·Nature Neuroscience
DOI 10.1038/89551
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Abstract

We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and event-related potentials (ERPs) to visualize the cerebral processing of unseen masked words. Within the areas associated with conscious reading, masked words activated left extrastriate, fusiform and precentral areas. Furthermore, masked words reduced the amount of activation evoked by a subsequent conscious presentation of the same word. In the left fusiform gyrus, this repetition suppression phenomenon was independent of whether the prime and target shared the same case, indicating that case-independent information about letter strings was extracted unconsciously. In comparison to an unmasked situation, however, the activation evoked by masked words was drastically reduced and was undetectable in prefrontal and parietal areas, correlating with participants' inability to report the masked words.

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  • Global Workspace Theory addresses paradigm cases including the attentional blink, masking, and wakefulness vs. sleep.

    “GWT addresses paradigm cases including the attentional blink (Sergent et al., 2005), masking (Dehaene et al., 2001), and wakefulness vs. sleep (Dehaene et al., 2003).”

    From Hard criteria for empirical theories of consciousness (2021) · cites this paper as Dehaene et al., 2001

  • This notion has been reinforced by findings indicating that the same fronto-parietal network is activated when contrasting brain responses to the same stimuli when subjects reported seeing them or not.

    “This notion has been reinforced by findings indicating that the same fronto-parietal network is activated when contrasting brain responses to the same stimuli when subjects reported seeing them or not 47 .”

    From The neural correlates of dreaming (2017) · cites this paper as [47]

  • Neuroimaging studies coupled with masking paradigms have shown greater ACC activation associated with reported relative to unreported processing of visual, auditory, and somatosensory stimuli.

    “Consistent with a role for the ACC in consciousness, neuroimaging studies coupled with masking paradigms have shown greater ACC activation associated with reported relative to unreported processing of visual (Dehaene et al., 2001;Gross et al., 2004;Sergent et al., 2005;Van Gaal et al., 2011), auditory (Sadaghiani et al., 2009), and even somatosensory stimuli (Boly et al., 2007).”

    From Does the Prefrontal Cortex Play an Essential Role in Consciousness? Insights from Intracranial Electrical Stimulation of the Human Brain (2021) · cites this paper as Dehaene et al., 2001

  • The left occipitotemporal cortex houses abstract representations of visual words.

    “The strongest and most influential claim was that the left occipitotemporal cortex housed abstract representations of visual words (Cohen et al., 2000; Dehaene et al., 2001).”

    From A review and synthesis of the first 20years of PET and fMRI studies of heard speech, spoken language and reading (2012) · cites this paper as Dehaene et al., 2001

  • The VWFA produces measurable responses to words, even under conditions that prevent awareness of the visual presentation of a word.

    “The VWFA produces measurable responses to words, even under conditions that prevent awareness of the visual presentation of a word [18] (Fig. 2).”

    From The visual word form area: expertise for reading in the fusiform gyrus (2003) · cites this paper as [18]

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Authors
Dehaene, S., Naccache, L., Cohen, L., Bihan, D. L., Mangin, J.-F., Poline, J.-B., & Rivière, D.
Affiliations
  • Inserm (FR)
  • Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives (FR)
Corresponding author
Dehaene, Stanislas
ORCID
Venue
Nature Neuroscience
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2001-07
Volume
4
Issue
7
Pages
752-758
ISSN
  • 1097-6256 (ISSN-L)
  • 1546-1726
DOI
10.1038/89551
OpenAlex
W1519837751
Cited by
1,305
References
51
Citations by year
2026: 19 · 2025: 33 · 2024: 44 · 2023: 37 · 2022: 55 · 2021: 52 · 2020: 51 · 2019: 54 · 2018: 77 · 2017: 38 · 2016: 42 · 2015: 50 · 2014: 63 · 2013: 75 · 2012: 59
FWCI
75.26
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
Locations
  • Nature Neuroscience (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • HAL (submittedVersion)
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 › Face Recognition and Perception
Keywords
repetition suppression, fusiform gyrus, extrastriate cortex, prefrontal cortex, parietal cortex, conscious reading, visual word recognition, neural correlates of consciousness
MeSH terms
Adult, Brain Mapping, Evoked Potentials, Female, Frontal Lobe, Humans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Occipital Lobe, Parietal Lobe, Perceptual Masking, Photic Stimulation, Reading, Visual Perception

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