The neural basis of visual word processing in the first year of school

• Applicant: Dr. Marisa Johanna Nordt
• Subject Area: Developmental and Educational Psychology ; Biological Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 550639754

Learning to read is an essential task for children in primary school. A central component of successful reading is the visual recognition and processing of written words. The present proposal focuses on the processes underlying recognition of written words in high-level visual cortex during the initial phases of reading acquisition in the first year of school. Recognition of written words is supported by a brain region in ventral temporal cortex (VTC) called the Visual Word Form Area (VWFA). This region can be identified using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and shows a selective response to written words compared to other visual stimuli. Importantly, while the VWFA can be identified in most, if not all, literate adults, it only emerges with the onset of reading education, that is, typically around the age of five or six years. In the past years, studies in adults have advanced our understanding of the VWFA: These studies have shown that, other than previously thought, the VWFA is not a single functional region in VTC, but consists of two separate subregions that differ with regard to both structural and functional properties. In addition, these studies have used multivariate measures to advance our understanding of the functional profile of the VWFA(s). While early studies suggested that the VWFA was involved in prelexical processing, more recent studies have shown that the VWFA (or one of its subregions) shows sensitivity to lexicality. These results have raised important questions for the development of the VWFA during reading acquisition, which remain unanswered. In particular, it is currently unknown (i) how the two subregions of the VWFA develop in initial phases of reading education and if one subregion emerges before the other, and (ii) what is the differential functional profile of the two subregions of the VWFA during this developmental period. Therefore, in the proposed project we aim to close these gaps in knowledge. To this end, we will conduct a longitudinal developmental neuroimaging study following children during the first year of reading education. Children will take part in three measurements, distributed over the first year of school, which include behavioral assessments of reading ability and child-friendly fMRI measurements. These measurements will allow us to define the two subregions of the VWFA at the individual brain level, track their development, and assess their functional specificity using multivariate analyses. This project will enhance our knowledge on the neural processes associated with reading development and the mechanisms of visual word processing as such. The results of this project will also be relevant for future studies targeting the neural basis of reading in clinical conditions, such as dyslexia.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants