Visual word recognition and Orthographic processing: Experiments and contributions from Cognitive Psychology, Neurosciences, and Computational Modeling

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From Hand to Eye With the Devil In-Between: Which Cognitive Mechanisms Underpin the Benefit From Handwriting Training When Learning Visual Graphs?

Publication . Fernandes, Tânia; Araújo, Susana

Cognitive science has recently shown a renewed interest on the benefit from training in handwriting (HW) when learning visual graphs, given that this learning experience improves more subsequent visual graph recognition than other forms of training. However, the underlying cognitive mechanism of this HW benefit has been elusive. Building on the 50 years of research on this topic, the present work outlines a theoretical approach to study this mechanism, specifying testable hypotheses that will allow distinguishing between confronting perspectives, i.e., symbolic accounts that hold that perceptual learning and visual analysis underpin the benefit from HW training vs. embodied sensorimotor accounts that argue for motoric representations as inner part of orthographic representations acquired via HW training. From the evidence critically revisited, we concluded that symbolic accounts are parsimonious and could better explain the benefit from HW training when learning visual graphs. The future challenge will be to put at test the detailed predictions presented here, so that the devil has no longer room in this equation.

2021-10-27Journal article

Open access

Modelling early visual processes of illiterate populations with Deep Belief Networks

Publication . Fottner, Nicola Alessandro; Fernandes, Tânia Patrícia Gregório; Correia, Luís Miguel Parreira e

The Neuronal Recycling Hypothesis (Dehaene, 2005; Dehaene & Cohen, 2007) proposes that the efficient computation and representation of written words at the orthographic stage of processing is enabled through the adaptation of pre-existing visual functions, which in turn, lead to the emergence of a specialised reading system. The present thesis aimed to investigate the emergence of neural detectors tuned to letters through biologically plausible computational models. A Deep Belief Network (DBN) was implemented as a model of visual shape perception, inspired by Testolin et al. (2017), and used to answer two questions: 1) does the DBN model generalise shape information that was learned from images of geometrical shapes towards classification of letters and pseudoletters (i.e., nonletters sharing the same features as letters); for example, classifying A as a triangle?; 2) is visual shape processing by a DBN sensitive to the same integration processes as those reflected in crowding effects (i.e., integration of adjacent information) by human observers; namely, by the congruency effect (better performance for targets surrounding by congruent than incongruent shapes)? The results showed that classification of letters and pseudoletters by our DBN was nonuniform across the different tested letter fonts, thus suggesting that decisions were not led by global shape. Interestingly, our model exhibited a congruence effect, and hence, a perceptual strategy similar to that previously found in illiterate adults (Fernandes et al., 2014). These results and further analyses also showed that our model’s perceptual strategy was not driven by low-level pixel similarities. The present work sets the stage to further emulate the transition from the illiterate to the ex-illiterate state, as done in the work of Hannagan et al. (2021) but with biologically more plausible learning algorithms (Bengio et al., 2015; Hinton & Salakhutdinov, 2006).

2023Master thesis

Open access

The role of the written script in shaping mirror-image discrimination: Evidence from illiterate, Tamil literate, and Tamil-Latin-alphabet bi-literate adults

Publication . Fernandes, Tânia; Arunkumar, Mrudula; Huettig, Falk

Learning a script with mirrored graphs (e.g., d ≠ b) requires overcoming the evolutionary-old perceptual tendency to process mirror images as equivalent. Thus, breaking mirror invariance offers an important tool for understanding cultural re-shaping of evolutionarily ancient cognitive mechanisms. Here we investigated the role of script (i.e., presence vs. absence of mirrored graphs: Latin alphabet vs. Tamil) by revisiting mirror-image processing by illiterate, Tamil monoliterate, and Tamil-Latin-alphabet bi-literate adults. Participants performed two same-different tasks (one orientation-based, another shape-based) on Latin-alphabet letters. Tamil monoliterate were significantly better than illiterate and showed good explicit mirror-image discrimination. However, only bi-literate adults fully broke mirror invariance: slower shape-based judgments for mirrored than identical pairs and reduced disadvantage in orientation-based over shape-based judgments of mirrored pairs. These findings suggest learning a script with mirrored graphs is the strongest force for breaking mirror invariance.

2021-01-02Journal article

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Holistic word processing is correlated with efficiency in visual word recognition

Publication . Ventura, Paulo; Fernandes, Tânia; Pereira, Alexandre; Guerreiro, José Carlos; Farinha-Fernandes, António; Delgado, João; Ferreira, Miguel F.; Faustino, Bruno; Raposo, Isabel; Wong, Alan C.-N.

Holistic processing of visual words (i.e., obligatory encoding of/attending to all letters of a word) could be a marker of expert word recognition. In the present study, we thus examined for the first time whether there is a direct relation between the wordcomposite effect (i.e., all parts of a visual word are fully processed when observers perform a task on a word part) and fast access to the orthographic lexicon by visual word experts (i.e., fluent adult readers). We adopted an individual differences approach and used the word-frequency effect (i.e., faster recognition of high- than low-frequency words) in an independent lexical decision task as a proxy of fast access to lexical orthographic representations. Fluent readers with larger word-composite effect showed smaller word-frequency effect. This correlation was mainly driven by an association between a larger composite effect and faster lexical decision on low-frequency words, probably because these lexical representations are less stable and integrated/unitized, hence allowing differentiating among fluent readers. We thus showed that holistic processing of visual words is indeed related to higher efficiency in visual word recognition by skilled readers.

2020-02-19Journal article

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Is holistic processing of written words modulated by phonology?

Publication . Ventura, Paulo; Fernandes, Tânia; Leite, Isabel; Pereira, Alexandre; Wong, Alan C.-N.

Holistic processing, a hallmark of face processing, has been shown for written words, signaled by the word composite effect. Fluent readers find it harder to focus on one half of a written word (e.g., the first syllable of a CV.CV word) while ignoring the other half (e.g., the second syllable), especially when the two halves are aligned rather than misaligned. Given the linguistic nature of written words, in the present study, we examined whether the word composite effect is modulated by phonology. In Experiment 1, participants saw two sequentially presented CV.CV words and had to decide if the left half (first syllable) was the same or not, regardless of the right half. The word pairs were either phonologically consistent (univocal orthography to phonology mapping; e.g., TI is always /ti/ in Portuguese) or inconsistent (orthography can map into different phonological representations; e.g., CA can correspond to /ka/ or /kɐ/). The word composite effect was found for phonologically consistent words but not for phonologically inconsistent words. In Experiment 2, timing of trial events was reduced to test whether the influence of phonology was fast and automatic. Similar to what was found in Experiment 1, the word composite effect was found only for phonologically consistent words. The faster trial events in Experiment 2 rendered it less likely that the influence of phonology in word composite effect is merely a result of strategic processing. These findings suggest that holistic processing of visual words is modulated by fast and automatic activation of lexical phonological representations.

2019Journal article

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