To successfully read and understand words one has to master several complex processes. A competent reader not only needs to recognize single letters, he or she must also have knowledge about how these letters are legally combined to larger orthographic units (orthographic processing), how to map these units to sounds (phonological processing) and to associate them with a certain meaning (semantic processing). Previous studies have identified the left ventral temporal region, including ventral extrastriate cortex and the fusiform gyrus to be involved in orthographic processing; left inferior frontal cortex and left temporo-parietal regions to be related to phonological processing and a network consisting of portions of left middle temporal cortex and left inferior frontal cortex as well as the angular gyrus and posterior cingulate cortex to be associated with semantic processing. The aim of the present study was to investigate how these sub-processes are reflected in neural activity depending on individual reading skills. To do so the authors correlated the subjects’ behavioural reading performances assessed by standardized reading measures and their neural activities, which were measured in a series of reading related fMRI-tasks. Besides replicating typical activation patterns associated with the above mentioned sub-processes of reading the present study also found dissociable patterns of brain activity varying in the degree of individual reading skill.
Welcome SE, & Joanisse MF (2012). Individual differences in skilled adult readers reveal dissociable patterns of neural activity associated with component processes of reading. Brain and language, 120 (3), 360-71 PMID: 22281240
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