Time course of brain activation during graphemic/phonologic processing in reading: An ERP study

• Published in: Brain and language Vol. 87; no. 3; pp. 412 - 420
• Main Authors: Mado Proverbio, Alice, Zani, Alberto
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: San Diego, CA Elsevier Inc 01.12.2003; Elsevier
• Subjects: Adult; Behavioral psychophysiology; Biological and medical sciences; Brain - anatomy & histology; Brain - metabolism; Electroencephalography; Electrophysiology; ERPs; Evoked Potentials - physiology; Female; Functional Laterality - physiology; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Grapheme/phoneme conversion; Hemispheric asymmetry; Humans; Inferior frontal sites; Language; Left hemisphere; Magnetic Resonance Imaging - methods; Male; Phonetics; Phonologic processing; Production and perception of written language; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Reaction Time - physiology; Reading; Speech Perception - physiology; Temporal sites; Vocabulary; ERPs; Temporal sites; Inferior frontal sites; Phonologic processing; Reading; Language; Grapheme/phoneme conversion; Left hemisphere; Hemispheric asymmetry; Human; Italian; Frontal lobe; Hemispheric specialization; Central nervous system; Electrophysiology; Cognition; Encephalon; Grapheme; Phonology; Laterality; Time analysis; Event evoked potential
• ISSN: 0093-934X; 1090-2155
• DOI: 10.1016/S0093-934X(03)00139-1

The present study sought to investigate the time course of brain activation during grapheme-to-phoneme conversion and phonologic processing of legal Italian syllables. To this goal, we monitored a group of right-handed native Italian volunteers performing a phonologic decision task (same/different judgments). ERPs were recorded from 28 scalp sites during silent reading. Analysis of ERP latency showed faster responses to same syllables than to different ones as early as 105 ms at left temporal electrode site and 160 ms at frontal sites. The first effect of phonologic/graphemic incongruity on the amplitude of ERPs was observed at lateral occipital/posterior temporal sites (N185), where physiologic responses were enhanced to incongruous syllables.