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Updated: Jul 14, 2026
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Stimulus-specific Cortical Visual Evoked Potential Morphological Patterns
Published on: May 12, 2019
Visual word processing and experiential origins of functional selectivity in human extrastriate cortex
Chris I Baker1, Jia Liu, Lawrence L Wald
1Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, 10 Center Drive, Building 10, Room 4C104, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA. bakerchris@mail.nih.gov
Summary
Visual word recognition relies on experience, not just genetics. Brain imaging shows a specific region in the extrastriate cortex becomes selective for words based on reading experience with different orthographies.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Science
- Psychology
Background:
- The human brain exhibits category-selective regions, but their origin, particularly for visual word recognition, remains debated.
- While visual word recognition is a common human skill, the evolutionary timescale suggests it's unlikely to be genetically predetermined.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether extensive experience with visual words shapes category-selective regions in the human extrastriate cortex.
- To determine if visual word recognition relies on learned experience rather than innate mechanisms.
Main Methods:
- Utilized high-resolution functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine brain activity.
- Compared brain responses to visually presented words, consonant strings, line drawings, digit strings, and Chinese characters.
- Assessed the impact of reading experience by comparing Hebrew readers and non-readers on their response to Hebrew words.
Main Results:
- Identified a specific region in the extrastriate cortex that selectively responds to visual words and consonant strings.
- Demonstrated that this region's selectivity is dependent on individual experience with specific orthographies.
- Observed significantly stronger activation for Hebrew words in Hebrew readers compared to non-readers.
Conclusions:
- Extensive experience with a visual category, such as reading, can induce strong category selectivity in discrete brain regions.
- The findings support the role of experience-dependent plasticity in the development of specialized neural mechanisms for visual word recognition.
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