Functional Gradient of the Fusiform Cortex for Chinese Character Recognition

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Science
• Linguistics

Background:

• Visual word recognition in alphabetic languages shows hierarchical organization in the left fusiform gyrus (FG).
• The functional organization of the FG for Chinese character recognition remains unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the functional organization of the FG for Chinese character recognition.
• To determine if functional gradients similar to alphabetic word recognition exist for Chinese characters.

Main Methods:

• Used univariate activation analysis and representational similarity analysis (RSA) with task fMRI data.
• Presented native Chinese readers with real characters, pseudo-characters, false characters, and stroke combinations.

Main Results:

• Observed a posterior-to-anterior functional gradient in the left FG based on stimulus likeness to characters.
• Identified distinct orthographic processing in the middle (abstract) and anterior (lexical) left FG.
• Found no similar coding pattern in the right FG, indicating hemispheric asymmetry.

Conclusions:

• The left FG exhibits a posterior-to-anterior gradient for Chinese character recognition.
• Distinct subregions of the left FG process different levels of orthographic information.
• Findings support a left-hemisphere-dominant hierarchical organization for visual word processing across different writing systems.