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Updated: Jun 30, 2025

Interaction between Phonological and Semantic Processes in Visual Word Recognition using Electrophysiology
Published on: June 29, 2021
The processing of spatial frequencies through time in visual word recognition
Clémence Bertrand Pilon1,2, Martin Arguin3,4,5
1Department of Psychology, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128, Succ. Centre-ville, Montréal, QC, H3C 3J7, Canada.
Abstract:
This study examined the temporal profile of spatial frequency processing in a word reading task in 16 normal adult readers. They had to report the word presented in a 200 ms display using a four-alternative forced-choice task (4AFC). The stimuli were made of an additive combination of the signal (i.e. the target word) and of a visual white noise patch wherein the signal-to-noise ratio varied randomly across stimulus duration. Four spatial frequency conditions were defined for the signal component of the stimulus (bandpass Butterworth filters with center frequencies of 1.2, 2.4, 4.8 and 9.6 cycles per degree). In contrast to the coarse-to-fine theory of visual recognition, the results show that the highest spatial frequency range dominates early processing, with a shift toward lower spatial frequencies at later points during stimulus exposure. This pattern interacted in a complex way with the temporal frequency content of signal-to-noise oscillations. The outcome of individual data patterns classification by a machine learning algorithm according to the corresponding spatial frequency band further shows that the most salient spatial frequency signature is obtained when the time dimension within data patterns is recoded into its Fourier transform.
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