Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 4, 2026
Development of a Gaze-Contingent Display Framework Designed for Perceptual and Oculomotor Research with Simulated Central Vision Loss
Published on: April 11, 2025
Training-related changes in early visual processing of functionally illiterate adults: evidence from event-related
Melanie Boltzmann, Jascha Rüsseler1
1Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Bamberg, Markusplatz 3, 96047 Bamberg, Germany. jascha.ruesseler@uni-bamberg.de.
Background:
Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were used to investigate training-related changes in fast visual word recognition of functionally illiterate adults. Analyses focused on the left-lateralized occipito-temporal N170, which represents the earliest processing of visual word forms. Event-related brain potentials were recorded from 20 functional illiterates receiving intensive literacy training for adults, 10 functional illiterates not participating in the training and 14 regular readers while they read words, pseudowords or viewed symbol strings. Subjects were required to press a button whenever a stimulus was immediately repeated.
Results:
Attending intensive literacy training was associated with improvements in reading and writing skills and with an increase of the word-related N170 amplitude. For untrained functional illiterates and regular readers no changes in literacy skills or N170 amplitude were observed.
Conclusions:
Results of the present study suggest that the word-related N170 can still be modulated in adulthood as a result of the improvements in literacy skills.
