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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 22, 2026

Interaction between Phonological and Semantic Processes in Visual Word Recognition using Electrophysiology

Interaction between Phonological and Semantic Processes in Visual Word Recognition using Electrophysiology

Published on: June 29, 2021

Neural dynamics of reading morphologically complex words.

Johanna Vartiainen¹, Silvia Aggujaro, Minna Lehtonen

¹Brain Research Unit, Low Temperature Laboratory, Helsinki University of Technology, Finland. johanna.vartiainen@tkk.fi

|June 13, 2009

Summary

Neural processing of complex Finnish words shows that inflected words activate the left superior temporal cortex later, suggesting semantic-syntactic processing rather than early decomposition. This indicates most words are processed by breaking them down.

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Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Psycholinguistics
Cognitive Science

Background:

The brain's representation and processing of morphologically complex words remain unclear.
Finnish language studies show a processing cost for inflected words, but the cause (early decomposition vs. later recombination) is debated.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the neural basis of processing inflected Finnish nouns.
To determine the timing and location of neural effects related to morphological complexity and word frequency.

Main Methods:

Magnetoencephalography (MEG) was used to record brain activity.
Ten participants silently read high- and low-frequency Finnish words in both inflected and monomorphemic forms.

Main Results:

Morphological complexity correlated with increased and prolonged activation in the left superior temporal cortex starting around 200 ms.
No significant early morphological effects were observed before 200 ms.
Morphological effects were present across all word frequencies, though very high-frequency words might also have full-form representations.

Conclusions:

The findings support the hypothesis that the processing cost of inflected words arises from semantic-syntactic level operations, not early decomposition.
Most inflected Finnish words are likely represented in a decomposed form (stem + suffix).
Very high-frequency inflected words may develop full-form representations in addition to decomposed ones.