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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 9, 2025

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

Inter- and intra- hemispheric interactions in reading ambiguous words.

Nofar Mizrachi¹, Zohar Eviatar¹, Orna Peleg²

¹Psychology Department, Institute of Information Processing and Decision Making, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel.

Cortex; a Journal Devoted to the Study of the Nervous System and Behavior

|December 4, 2023

Summary

The brain processes ambiguous words differently based on their type. Homophonic homographs involve inter-hemispheric communication, while heterophonic homographs rely on left-hemisphere processing for meaning retrieval.

Keywords:

Ambiguous words DCM Effective connectivity PEB Reading

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Last Updated: Jul 9, 2025

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Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Cognitive Science
Psycholinguistics

Background:

Understanding how the brain processes language, particularly words with multiple meanings, is crucial for cognitive neuroscience.
Ambiguous words, such as homographs, present unique challenges for semantic processing and neural representation.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the neural mechanisms underlying the processing of unambiguous words versus two types of ambiguous words: homophonic homographs and heterophonic homographs.
To examine inter- and intra-hemispheric connectivity patterns during word meaning retrieval.

Main Methods:

Utilized a semantic relatedness judgment task with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data.
Applied effective connectivity analysis using Dynamic Causal Modeling (DCM) to previously published fMRI data.

Main Results:

Unambiguous words showed inter-hemispheric competition in orthographic processing.
Heterophonic homographs exhibited increased left-hemisphere connectivity, suggesting top-down phonological re-activation.
Homophonic homographs demonstrated bidirectional information flow between the left and right hemispheres.

Conclusions:

The brain employs distinct neural pathways for processing different types of ambiguous words.
Hemispheric communication patterns vary significantly depending on whether word meanings share phonological representations.
Findings offer novel insights into the neural basis of semantic ambiguity resolution in language processing.