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Chinese is a visually complex logographic script that consists of square-shaped characters, with each character composed of strokes. Previous masked priming studies using single-character Chinese stroke neighbors (i.e., visually similar characters differing in only one or two strokes, e.g., 大/犬) have shown facilitatory or inhibitory priming effects. We tested whether the mixed pattern of stroke neighbor priming might be an instance of asymmetry in priming that has been observed previously with Japanese kana and Latin alphabets. Specifically, a prime lacking a stroke (or line segment) that is present in the target speeds up the recognition of its stroke neighbor almost as much as the identity prime (e.g., 刀-刃 = 刃-刃), but not the converse (e.g., 刃-刀 >> 刀-刀). Two experiments, one using a character match task and the second using lexical decision, showed a robust asymmetry in priming by stroke neighbors. The results suggest that the early letter identification process is similar across script types, as anticipated by the Noisy Channel model, which regards the first stage of visual word recognition as a language-universal perceptual process.

In the present study, we introduce parafoveal letter confusion matrices for the Russian language, which uses the Cyrillic script. To ensure that our confusion rates reflect parafoveal processing and no other effects, we employed an adapted boundary paradigm (Rayner, 1975 ) that prevented the participants from directly fixating the letter stimuli. Additionally, we assessed confusability under isolated and word-like (crowded) conditions using two modern fonts, since previous research showed that letter recognition depended on crowding and font (Coates, 2015 ; Pelli et al., 2006 ). Our additional goal was to gain insight into what letter features or configurational patterns might be essential for letter recognition in Russian; thus, we conducted exploratory clustering analysis on visual confusion scores to identify groups of similar letters. To support this analysis, we conducted a comprehensive review of over 20 studies that proposed crucial properties of Latin letters relevant to character perception. The summary of this review is valuable not only for our current study but also for future research in the field.

When reading, the visual system is confronted with many words simultaneously. How much of that information can a reader process at once? Previous studies demonstrated that low-level visual features of multiple words are processed in parallel, but lexical attributes are processed serially, for one word at a time. This implies that an internal bottleneck lies somewhere between early visual and lexical analysis. We used a dual-task behavioral paradigm to investigate whether this bottleneck lies at the stage of letter recognition or phonological decoding. On each trial, two letter strings were flashed briefly, one above and one below fixation, and then masked. In the letter identification experiment, participants indicated whether a vowel was present in a particular letter string. In the phonological decoding experiment, participants indicated whether the letter string was pronounceable. We compared accuracy in a focused attention condition, in which participants judged only one of the two strings, with accuracy in a divided attention condition, in which participants judged both strings independently. In both experiments, the cost of dividing attention was so large that it supported a serial model: participants were able to process only one letter string per trial. Furthermore, we found a stimulus processing trade-off that is characteristic of serial processing: When participants judged one string correctly, they were less likely to judge the other string correctly. Therefore, the bottleneck that constrains word recognition under these conditions arises at a sub-lexical level, perhaps due to a limit on the efficiency of letter recognition.

•ECoG high‐gamma analysis reveals distinct spatiotemporal reading dynamics.•Kanji reading activates bilateral ventral occipitotemporal cortex early.•Kana reading shows prolonged activation in the left dorsal pathway.•Distinct neural circuits mediate Kanji versus Kana processing. Reading engages complex neural networks integrating visual, phonological, and semantic information. The dual-stream model posits ventral and dorsal pathways for lexical and sublexical processing in the left hemisphere and is well-supported in alphabetic languages. However, its applicability to non-alphabetic scripts remains unclear. The Japanese writing system, comprising Kana (syllabograms) and Kanji (morphograms) with distinct orthographic, phonological, and semantic properties, provides a unique framework to investigate neural dissociation between phonological and orthographic-semantic processing. Previous studies suggest that Kanji relies on the ventral route for whole-word recognition and semantic processing, whereas Kana depends mainly on the dorsal route for phonological decoding via grapheme-to-phoneme conversion; however, their spatiotemporal dynamics remain unknown. Using high-gamma power analysis from electrocorticography recordings in 14 patients with epilepsy and subdural implants, we examined the spatiotemporal neural dynamics of Kana and Kanji reading. Participants completed a visual lexical decision task with Kana and Kanji words and pseudowords. Across 912 electrodes, differential high-gamma power analysis showed that Kanji activated bilateral occipitotemporal fusiform regions early (120–550 ms) and the left inferior temporal gyrus (150–240 ms). Conversely, Kana showed prolonged late activation (270–750 ms) in the left-lateralised superior temporal, supramarginal, and inferior frontal gyri, especially during pseudoword processing. These findings indicate that Kanji relies on bilateral ventral stream earlier, while Kana depends on the left dorsal stream, with slower processing reflecting the extra grapheme-to-phoneme conversion. This underscores the value of non-alphabetic languages in elucidating both universal and script-specific neural mechanisms, advancing a cross-linguistic understanding of the reading network. [Display omitted]

The Visual Word Form Area (VWFA) is part of the left ventral visual stream that underlies the invariant identification of visual words. It remains debated whether this region is truly selective for words relative to common objects; why this particular part of the visual system is reproducibly engaged in reading; and whether reading expertise also relies on perceptual learning within earlier visual areas. In this fMRI study we matched written words and line-drawings of objects in luminance, contour length and number of features. We then compared them to control images made by scrambling procedures that kept local features intact. Greater responses to written words than to objects were found not only in the VWFA, but also in areas V1/V2 and V3v/V4. Furthermore, by contrasting stimuli reduced either to line junctions (vertices) or to line midsegments, we showed that the VWFA partially overlaps with regions of ventral visual cortex particularly sensitive to the presence of line junctions that are useful for object recognition. Our results indicate that preferential processing of written words can be observed at multiple levels of the visual system. It is possible that responses in early visual areas might be due to some remaining differences between words and controls not eliminated in the present stimuli. However, our results concur with recent comparisons of literates and illiterates and suggest that these early visual activations reflect the effects of perceptual learning under pressure for fast, parallel processing that is more prominent in reading than other visual cognitive processes. ► Carefully matched written word and object line-drawing stimuli. ► Greater fMRI responses to words than objects in left occipitotemporal cortex. ► Moreover, greater responses to words than objects in early visual areas (V1, V2, V4…). ► The latter might reflect perceptual learning expertise for fast, parallel reading.

Research has shown that fonts viewed at a smaller visual angle benefit from greater letter boldness. Since small and large visual angles operate on different spatial frequencies, we examined whether the effect was dependent on font size. By applying a paradigm of single-letter exposure across two experiments, we showed that fonts of thinner letter strokes and of extreme boldness decreased recognition for all tested font sizes, and that there was a positive effect of boldness at small visual angles which did not occur at large visual angles. The paper provides evidence that bolder fonts are less effective at improving recognition at larger visual angles, and that over a scale of font weights there is a drop-off at the lightest and the heaviest extremes at all tested font sizes.

There has been enduring debate on how attention alters contrast appearance. Recent research indicates that exogenous attention enhances contrast appearance for low-contrast stimuli but attenuates it for high-contrast stimuli. Similarly, one study has demonstrated that endogenous attention heightens perceived contrast for low-contrast stimuli, yet none have explored its impact on high-contrast stimuli. In this study, we investigated how endogenous attention alters contrast appearance, with a specific focus on high-contrast stimuli. In Experiment 1, we utilized the rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) paradigm to direct endogenous attention, revealing that contrast appearance was enhanced for both low- and high-contrast stimuli. To eliminate potential influences from the confined attention field in the RSVP paradigm, Experiment 2 adopted the letter identification paradigm, deploying attention across a broader visual field. Results consistently indicated that endogenous attention increased perceived contrast for high-contrast stimuli. Experiment 3 employed equiluminant chromatic letters as stimuli in the letter identification task to eliminate potential interference from contrast adaption, which might have occurred in Experiment 2. Remarkably, the boosting effect of endogenous attention persisted. Combining the results from these experiments, we propose that endogenous attention consistently enhances contrast appearance, irrespective of stimulus contrast levels. This stands in contrast to the effects of exogenous attention, suggesting that mechanisms through which endogenous attention alters contrast appearance may differ from those of exogenous attention.

Previous research has reported that both letter and word identification are slower when the stimuli are presented at rotations above 45° than when presented in their canonical horizontal view. Indeed, influential models of word recognition posit that letter detectors in the visual word recognition system are disrupted by rotation angles above 40° or 45° (e.g., Local Combinations Detector model; Dehaene, Cohen, Sigman, & Vinckier, 2005 , Trends in Cognitive Sciences ). However, recent experiments have shown robust masked identity/form priming effects for 90° rotated words, thus calling into question this assumption. Here we aimed to isolate the degree to which letter detectors are disrupted when manipulating letter rotation in three masked identity priming letter match experiments. Probes and targets were always presented in the canonical upright position, whereas forwardly masked primes were rotated in different angles. The rotation angles were 0° versus 45° (Experiment 1), 22.5° versus 67.5° (Experiment 2), and 45° versus 90° (Experiment 3). Results showed a sizeable masked identity priming effect regardless of the rotation angle, hence demonstrating that letter detectors are not disrupted by rotations smaller than 90° in the early moments of letter processing. This pattern suggests that letter detectors are more resilient to changes in visual form than predicted by the LCD model.

Do Chinese children implicitly extract information from Chinese print before they are formally taught to read? We examined Chinese kindergartners' sensitivity to regularities in Chinese characters and the relationship between such sensitivity and later literacy ability. Eighty-five kindergartners from Beijing were given a character-learning task and assessed on word reading and word writing twice within a 1-year interval. Sensitivity to the structural and phonetic regularities in Chinese appeared in 4-year-olds, and sensitivity to the positions of radicals in Chinese characters emerged in 5-year-olds. Such sensitivities explained unique variance in Chinese word reading and writing 1 year later, with age and nonverbal IQ statistically controlled. Young children detected regularities in written Chinese before they received formal instruction in it, which underscores both the importance of early statistical learning for literacy development and the analytic properties of Chinese print.