N170 adaptation effect of the sub-lexical phonological and semantic processing in Chinese character reading

doi:10.3724/SP.J.1041.2021.00807

Abstract

Abstract:

Event-Related Potential (ERP) studies of visual word recognition have found that N170, an early component, is sensitive to visual words, reflecting the processing of orthography, phonology, and semantics. However, its role in word reading is still controversial. By taking advantage of the Chinese writing system’s ideographic property, the current study used the neural adaptation paradigm to investigate the sensitivity of N170 to Chinese characters’ sublexical phonological and semantic information. Experiment 1 manipulated the phonetic radical and character’s pronunciation repetition of continuous Chinese characters. The results showed that N170 of the left electrode had neural adaptation to phonetic radical and the whole character pronunciation. Experiment 2 further manipulated the semantic radical and character’s meaning repetition. The results showed that the left N170 only had neural adaptation to the character’s meaning, while the right N170 had neural adaptation to both the repetition of the semantic radical and the character’s meaning. The current results suggested that the left N170 was sensitive to the character’s phonological and semantic information and the phonetic radical, whereas the right N170 was sensitive to the character’s meaning and the semantic radical.

Key words: word reading, N170, Chinese characters, neural adaptation

ZHANG Rui, WANG Zhenhua, WANG Xiaojuan, YANG Jianfeng. (2021). N170 adaptation effect of the sub-lexical phonological and semantic processing in Chinese character reading. Acta Psychologica Sinica, 53(8), 807-820.

Figures/Tables 9

References 64

[1]	Binder, J. R., Medler, D. A., Westbury, C. F., Liebenthal, E., & Buchanan, L. (2006). Tuning of the human left fusiform gyrus to sublexical orthographic structure. Neuroimage, 33(2), 739-748. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2006.06.053 URL
[2]	Bolger, D. J., Perfetti, C. A., & Schneider, W. (2005). Cross-cultural effect on the brain revisited: Universal structures plus writing system variation. Human Brain Mapping, 25(1), 92-104. doi: 10.1002/(ISSN)1097-0193 URL
[3]	Booth, J. R., Lu, D., Burman, D. D., Chou, T. -L., Jin, Z., Peng, D. -L., … Liu, L. (2006). Specialization of phonological and semantic processing in Chinese word reading. Brain Research, 1071(1), 197-207.
[4]	Brázdil, M., Mikl, M., Mareček, R., Krupa, P., & Rektor, I. (2007). Effective connectivity in target stimulus processing: A dynamic causal modeling study of visual oddball task. Neuroimage, 35(2), 827-835. pmid: 17258910
[5]	Cao, X., Ma, X., & Qi, C. (2015). N170 adaptation effect for repeated faces and words. Neuroscience, 294, 21-28. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2015.03.009 pmid: 25772788
[6]	Cohen, L., Dehaene, S., Naccache, L., Lehéricy, S., Dehaene-Lambertz, G., Hénaff, M. -A., & Michel, F. (2000). The visual word form area. Brain, 123(2), 291-307. doi: 10.1093/brain/123.2.291 URL
[7]	Davis, C. P., Libben, G., & Segalowitz, S. J. (2019). Compounding matters: Event-related potential evidence for early semantic access to compound words. Cognition, 184, 44-52. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2018.12.006 URL
[8]	Dehaene, S., & Cohen, L. (2011). The unique role of the visual word form area in reading. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 15(6), 254-262. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2011.04.003 URL
[9]	Delorme, A., & Makeig, S. (2004) EEGLAB: An open source toolbox for analysis of single-trial EEG dynamics including independent component analysis. Journal of Neuroscience Methods, 134, 9-21 pmid: 15102499
[10]	Devlin, J. T., Jamison, H. L., Gonnerman, L. M., & Matthews, P. M. (2006). The role of the posterior fusiform gyrus in reading. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 18(6), 911-922. doi: 10.1162/jocn.2006.18.6.911 URL
[11]	Eulitz, C., Eulitz, H., Maess, B., Cohen, R., Pantev, C., & Elbert, T. (2000). Magnetic brain activity evoked and induced by visually presented words and nonverbal stimuli. Psychophysiology, 37(4), 447-455. pmid: 10934903
[12]	Fraga González, G., Žarić, G., Tijms, J., Bonte, M., Blomert, L., Leppänen, P., & van der Molen, M. W. (2016). Responsivity to dyslexia training indexed by the N170 amplitude of the brain potential elicited by word reading. Brain and Cognition, 106, 42-54. doi: 10.1016/j.bandc.2016.05.001 pmid: 27200495
[13]	Glezer, L. S., Eden, G., Jiang, X., Luetje, M., Napoliello, E., Kim, J., & Riesenhuber, M. (2016). Uncovering phonological and orthographic selectivity across the reading network using fMRI-RA. Neuroimage, 138, 248-256. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2016.05.072 URL
[14]	Glezer, L. S., Jiang, X., & Riesenhuber, M. (2009). Evidence for highly selective neuronal tuning to whole words in the “Visual Word Form Area”. Neuron, 62(2), 199-204. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2009.03.017 URL
[15]	Gold, B. T., Balota, D. A., Jones, S. J., Powell, D. K., Smith, C. D., & Andersen, A. H. (2006). Dissociation of automatic and strategic lexical-semantics: Functional magnetic resonance imaging evidence for differing roles of multiple frontotemporal regions. Journal of Neuroscience, 26(24), 6523-6532.
[16]	Hauk, O., Davis, M. H., Ford, M., Pulvermüller, F., & Marslen-Wilson, W. D. (2006). The time course of visual word recognition as revealed by linear regression analysis of ERP data. Neuroimage, 30(4), 1383-1400. pmid: 16460964
[17]	Hoversten, L. J., Brothers, T., Swaab, T. Y., & Traxler, M. J. (2017). Early processing of orthographic language membership information in bilingual visual word recognition: Evidence from ERPs. Neuropsychologia, 103, 183-190. doi: S0028-3932(17)30279-8 pmid: 28743547
[18]	Hsiao, J. H. -W., Shillcock, R., & Lee, C. -Y. (2007). Neural correlates of foveal splitting in reading: Evidence from an ERP study of Chinese character recognition. Neuropsychologia, 45(6), 1280-1292. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2006.10.001 URL
[19]	Hsu, C. -H., Tsai, J. -L., Lee, C. -Y., & Tzeng, O. -L. (2009). Orthographic combinability and phonological consistency effects in reading Chinese phonograms: An event-related potential study. Brain and Language, 108(1), 56-66. doi: 10.1016/j.bandl.2008.09.002 URL
[20]	Kim, K. H., Yoon, H. W., & Park, H. W. (2004). Spatiotemporal brain activation pattern during word/picture perception by native Koreans. Neuroreport, 15(7), 1099-1103. doi: 10.1097/00001756-200405190-00003 URL
[21]	Krafnick, A. J., Tan, L. -H., Flowers, D. L., Luetje, M. M., Napoliello, E. M., Siok, W. -T., … Eden, G. F. (2016). Chinese character and English word processing in children’s ventral occipitotemporal cortex: fMRI evidence for script invariance. Neuroimage, 133, 302-312. doi: S1053-8119(16)00219-6 pmid: 27012502
[22]	Krekelberg, B., Boynton, G. M., & van Wezel, R. J. A. (2006). Adaptation: From single cells to BOLD signals. Trends in Neurosciences, 29(5), 250-256. pmid: 16529826
[23]	Kuo, W. -J., Yeh, T. -C., Lee, J. -R., Chen, L. -F., Lee, P. -L., Chen, S. -S., … Hsieh, J. -C. (2004). Orthographic and phonological processing of Chinese characters: An fMRI study. Neuroimage, 21(4), 1721-1731. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2003.12.007 URL
[24]	Lee, C. -Y., Tsai, J. -L., Chan, W. -H., Hsu, C. -H., Hung, D. L., & Tzeng, O. J. L. (2007). Temporal dynamics of the consistency effect in reading Chinese: An event-related potentials study. NeuroReport, 18(2), 147-151. doi: 10.1097/WNR.0b013e328010d4e4 URL
[25]	Lindell, A. K., & Lum, J. A. G. (2008). Priming vs. rhyming: Orthographic and phonological representations in the left and right hemispheres. Brain and Cognition, 68(2), 193-203. doi: 10.1016/j.bandc.2008.04.005 URL
[26]	Lin, S. E., Chen, H. C., Zhao, J., Li, S., He, S., & Weng, X. C. (2011). Left-lateralized N170 response to unpronounceable pseudo but not false Chinese characters—the key role of orthography. Neuroscience, 190, 200-206. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2011.05.071 pmid: 21704128
[27]	Liu, C., Zhang, W. -T., Tang, Y. -Y., Mai, X. -Q., Chen, H. -C., Tardif, T., & Luo, Y. -J. (2008). The visual word form area: Evidence from an fMRI study of implicit processing of Chinese characters. Neuroimage, 40(3), 1350-1361. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2007.10.014 URL
[28]	Lu, Q., Tang, Y. -Y., Zhou, L., & Yu, Q. (2011). The different time courses of reading different levels of Chinese characters: An ERP study. Neuroscience Letters, 498(3), 194-198. doi: 10.1016/j.neulet.2011.03.061 URL
[29]	Madden, D. J. (2004). Age-related changes in neural activity during visual target detection measured by fMRI. Cerebral Cortex, 14(2), 143-155. pmid: 14704211
[30]	Maurer, U., Brem, S., Bucher, K., & Brandeis, D. (2005). Emerging neurophysiological specialization for letter strings. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 17(10), 1532-1552. pmid: 16269095
[31]	Maurer, U., & McCandliss, B. D. (2007). The development of visual expertise for words: The contribution of electrophysiology. In E. L. Grigorenko & A. J. Naples (Eds.), Single-word reading: Behavioral and biological perspectives. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
[32]	Maurer, U., Zevin, J. D., & McCandliss, B. D. (2008). Left-lateralized N170 effects of visual expertise in reading: Evidence from Japanese syllabic and logographic scripts. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 20(10), 1878-1891. doi: 10.1162/jocn.2008.20125 pmid: 18370600
[33]	Mechelli, A., Sartori, G., Orlandi, P., & Price, C. J. (2006). Semantic relevance explains category effects in medial fusiform gyri. Neuroimage, 30(3), 992-1002. pmid: 16343950
[34]	Mei, L., Xue, G., Lu, Z.-L., He, Q., Zhang, M., Xue, F., … Dong, Q. (2013). Orthographic transparency modulates the functional asymmetry in the fusiform cortex: An artificial language training study. Brain and Language, 125(2), 165-172. doi: 10.1016/j.bandl.2012.01.006 URL
[35]	Mo, C., Yu, M., Seger, C., & Mo, L. (2015). Holistic neural coding of Chinese character forms in bilateral ventral visual system. Brain and Language, 141, 28-34. doi: 10.1016/j.bandl.2014.11.008 URL
[36]	Pattamadilok, C., Chanoine, V., Pallier, C., Anton, J. -L., Nazarian, B., Belin, P., & Ziegler, J. C. (2017). Automaticity of phonological and semantic processing during visual word recognition. Neuroimage, 149, 244-255. doi: S1053-8119(17)30107-6 pmid: 28163139
[37]	Price, C. J., & Devlin, J. T. (2011). The interactive account of ventral occipitotemporal contributions to reading. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 15(6), 246-253. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2011.04.001 URL
[38]	Proverbio, A. M., & Zani, A. (2003). Time course of brain activation during graphemic/phonologic processing in reading: An ERP study. Brain and Language, 87(3), 412-420. pmid: 14642543
[39]	Raposo, A., Moss, H. E., Stamatakis, E. A., & Tyler, L. K. (2006). Repetition suppression and semantic enhancement: An investigation of the neural correlates of priming. Neuropsychologia, 44(12), 2284-2295. pmid: 16806317
[40]	Rossion, B., Joyce, C. A., Cottrell, G. W., & Tarr, M. J. (2003). Early lateralization and orientation tuning for face, word, and object processing in the visual cortex. Neuroimage, 20(3), 1609-1624. pmid: 14642472
[41]	Sacchi, E., & Laszlo, S. (2016). An event-related potential study of the relationship between N170 lateralization and phonological awareness in developing readers. Neuropsychologia, 91, 415-425. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2016.09.001 URL
[42]	Saygin, Z. M., Osher, D. E., Norton, E. S., Youssoufian, D. A., Beach, S. D., Feather, J., … Kanwisher, N. (2016). Connectivity precedes function in the development of the visual word form area. Nature Neuroscience, 19(9), 1250-1255. doi: 10.1038/nn.4354 URL
[43]	Scott, G. G., O’Donnell, P. J., Leuthold, H., & Sereno, S. C. (2009). Early emotion word processing: Evidence from event-related potentials. Biological Psychology, 80(1), 95-104. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2008.03.010 URL
[44]	Segalowitz, S. J., & Zheng, X. (2009). An ERP study of category priming: Evidence of early lexical semantic access. Biological Psychology, 80(1), 122-129. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2008.04.009 pmid: 18524454
[45]	Shaywitz, B. A., Shaywitz, S. E., Pugh, K. R., Mencl, W. E., Fulbright, R. K., Skudlarski, P., … Gore, J. C. (2002). Disruption of posterior brain systems for reading in children with developmental dyslexia. Biological Psychiatry, 52(2), 101-110.
[46]	Siok, W. T., Perfetti, C. A., Jin, Z., & Tan, L. H. (2004). Biological abnormality of impaired reading is constrained by culture. Nature, 431(7004), 71-76. doi: 10.1038/nature02865 URL
[47]	Szwed, M., Qiao, E., Jobert, A., Dehaene, S., & Cohen, L. (2014). Effects of literacy in early visual and occipitotemporal areas of Chinese and French readers. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 26(3), 459-475. doi: 10.1162/jocn_a_00499 URL
[48]	Tan, L. H., Liu, H. -L., Perfetti, C. A., Spinks, J. A., Fox, P. T., & Gao, J. -H. (2001). The neural system underlying Chinese logograph reading. Neuroimage, 13(5), 836-846. pmid: 11304080
[49]	Vinckier, F., Dehaene, S., Jobert, A., Dubus, J. P., Sigman, M., & Cohen, L. (2007). Hierarchical coding of letter strings in the ventral stream: Dissecting the inner organization of the visual word-form system. Neuron, 55(1), 143-156. pmid: 17610823
[50]	Wang, X., Shu, H., & Yang, J. (2010). Visual word form area and its functional role in the neural network of reading. Advances in Psychological Science, 18(8), 1199-1207.
[51]	Wang, X., Xu, Y., Wang, Y., Zeng, Y., Zhang, J., Ling, Z., & Bi, Y. (2018). Representational similarity analysis reveals task-dependent semantic influence of the visual word form area. Scientific Reports, 8(1), 3047. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-21062-0 URL
[52]	Wang, X., Yang, J., Shu, H., & Zevin, J. D. (2011). Left fusiform BOLD responses are inversely related to word-likeness in a one-back task. Neuroimage, 55(3), 1346-1356. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2010.12.062 URL
[53]	Wang, X., Zhao, R., Zevin, J. D., & Yang, J. (2016). The neural correlates of the interaction between semantic and phonological processing for Chinese character reading. Frontiers in Psychology, 7(518).
[54]	Wheatley, T., Weisberg, J., Beauchamp, M. S., & Martin, A. (2005). Automatic priming of semantically related words reduces activity in the fusiform gyrus. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 17(12), 1871-1885. pmid: 16356325
[55]	Xue, G., Chen, C., Jin, Z., & Dong, Q. (2006). Language experience shapes fusiform activation when processing a logographic artificial language: An fMRI training study. Neuroimage, 31(3), 1315-1326. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2005.11.055 URL
[56]	Yang, J., Mccandliss, B. D., Shu, H., & Zevin, J. D. (2009). Simulating language-specific and language-general effects in a statistical learning model of Chinese reading. Journal of Memory and Language, 61(2), 238-257. doi: 10.1016/j.jml.2009.05.001 URL
[57]	Yang, J., Wang, X., Shu, H., & Zevin, J. D. (2011). Brain networks associated with sublexical properties of Chinese characters. Brain and Language, 119(2), 68-79. doi: 10.1016/j.bandl.2011.03.004 URL
[58]	Yang, J., Wang, X., Shu, H., & Zevin, J. D. (2012). Task by stimulus interactions in brain responses during Chinese character processing. Neuroimage, 60(2), 979-990. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2012.01.036 URL
[59]	Yum, Y. N., Law, S. -P., Su, I. -F., Lau, K. -Y. D., & Mo, K. N. (2014). An ERP study of effects of regularity and consistency in delayed naming and lexicality judgment in a logographic writing system. Frontiers in Psychology, 5(5), 315.
[60]	Zhao, L., Chen, C., Shao, L., Wang, Y., Xiao, X., Chen, C., .. Xue, G. (2017). Orthographic and phonological representations in the fusiform cortex. Cerebral Cortex, 27(11), 5197-5210.
[61]	Zhao, J., Li, S., Lin, S. -E., Cao, X. -H., He, S., & Weng, X. -C. (2012). Selectivity of N170 in the left hemisphere as an electrophysiological marker for expertise in reading Chinese. Neuroscience Bulletin, 28(5), 577-584. doi: 10.1007/s12264-012-1274-y URL
[62]	Zhou, L., Peng, G., Zheng, H. -Y., Su, I. -F., & Wang, W. S. -Y. (2012). Sub-lexical phonological and semantic processing of semantic radicals: A primed naming study. Reading and Writing, 26(6), 967-989.
[63]	Zhou, X. L., Lu, X. M., & Shu, H. (2000). The nature of sublexical processing in reading Chinese: Phonological activation of semantic radials. Acta Psychologica Sinica. 32(1), 20-24.
[64]	Zhou, X., & Marslen-Wilson, W. (1999). Phonology, orthography, and semantic activation in reading Chinese. Journal of Memory and Language, 41(4), 579-606.

	O+P+			O+P-			O-P+			O-P-
	t (27)	p	Cohen d	t (27)	p	Cohen d	t (27)	p	Cohen d	t (27)	p	Cohen d
S1 vs. S2	-10.041	0.000	1.58	-8.654	0.000	1.51	-9.251	0.000	1.54	-8.293	0.000	1.46
S1 vs. S3	-9.441	0.000	1.58	-7.71	0.000	1.43	-8.415	0.000	1.26	-8.493	0.000	1.29
S1 vs. S4	-7.302	0.000	1.14	-6.441	0.000	1.01	-6.453	0.000	0.94	-6.168	0.000	0.92
S2 vs. S3	-0.087	1.000	0.01	0.367	1.000	0.03	2.854	0.049	0.26	1.052	1.000	0.09
S2 vs. S4	3.905	0.003	0.33	5.647	0.000	0.48	5.517	0.000	0.50	4.602	0.001	0.48
S3 vs. S4	4.805	0.000	0.34	4.84	0.000	0.43	2.845	0.050	0.25	4.769	0.000	0.38

	O+P+			O+P-			O-P+			O-P-
	t (27)	p	Cohen d	t (27)	p	Cohen d	t (27)	p	Cohen d	t (27)	p	Cohen d
S1 vs. S2	-10.041	0.000	1.58	-8.654	0.000	1.51	-9.251	0.000	1.54	-8.293	0.000	1.46
S1 vs. S3	-9.441	0.000	1.58	-7.71	0.000	1.43	-8.415	0.000	1.26	-8.493	0.000	1.29
S1 vs. S4	-7.302	0.000	1.14	-6.441	0.000	1.01	-6.453	0.000	0.94	-6.168	0.000	0.92
S2 vs. S3	-0.087	1.000	0.01	0.367	1.000	0.03	2.854	0.049	0.26	1.052	1.000	0.09
S2 vs. S4	3.905	0.003	0.33	5.647	0.000	0.48	5.517	0.000	0.50	4.602	0.001	0.48
S3 vs. S4	4.805	0.000	0.34	4.84	0.000	0.43	2.845	0.050	0.25	4.769	0.000	0.38

	O+P+			O+P-			O-P+			O-P-
	t (27)	p	Cohen d	t (27)	p	Cohen d	t (27)	p	Cohen d	t (27)	p	Cohen d
S1 vs. S2	-8.937	0.000	1.87	-8.531	0.000	1.74	-8.123	0.000	1.74	-8.673	0.000	1.86
S1 vs. S3	-8.333	0.000	1.65	-7.126	0.000	1.59	-8.183	0.000	1.47	-8.099	0.000	1.71
S1 vs. S4	-5.808	0.000	1.12	-5.332	0.000	1.00	-6.453	0.000	1.10	-5.766	0.000	1.15
S2 vs. S3	1.419	1.000	0.13	0.932	1.000	0.08	1.741	0.558	0.20	2.379	0.148	0.18
S2 vs. S4	4.808	0.000	0.65	6.67	0.001	0.75	4.528	0.001	0.56	6.783	0.000	0.63
S3 vs. S4	5.084	0.000	0.50	6.619	0.000	0.64	3.815	0.004	0.35	5.617	0.000	0.47

	O+P+			O+P-			O-P+			O-P-
	t (27)	p	Cohen d	t (27)	p	Cohen d	t (27)	p	Cohen d	t (27)	p	Cohen d
S1 vs. S2	-8.937	0.000	1.87	-8.531	0.000	1.74	-8.123	0.000	1.74	-8.673	0.000	1.86
S1 vs. S3	-8.333	0.000	1.65	-7.126	0.000	1.59	-8.183	0.000	1.47	-8.099	0.000	1.71
S1 vs. S4	-5.808	0.000	1.12	-5.332	0.000	1.00	-6.453	0.000	1.10	-5.766	0.000	1.15
S2 vs. S3	1.419	1.000	0.13	0.932	1.000	0.08	1.741	0.558	0.20	2.379	0.148	0.18
S2 vs. S4	4.808	0.000	0.65	6.67	0.001	0.75	4.528	0.001	0.56	6.783	0.000	0.63
S3 vs. S4	5.084	0.000	0.50	6.619	0.000	0.64	3.815	0.004	0.35	5.617	0.000	0.47

	O+S+			O+S-			O-S+			O-S-
	t (27)	p	Cohen d	t (27)	p	Cohen d	t (27)	p	Cohen d	t (27)	p	Cohen d
S1 vs. S2	-11.519	0.000	1.90	-10.18	0.000	1.64	-11.41	0.000	1.81	-8.293	0.000	1.46
S1 vs. S3	-9.439	0.000	1.56	-9.145	0.000	1.47	-10.84	0.000	1.61	-8.493	0.000	1.29
S1 vs. S4	-5.977	0.000	0.96	-4.975	0.000	0.87	-7.637	0.000	1.01	-6.168	0.000	0.92
S2 vs. S3	1.182	1.000	0.09	0.055	1.000	0.01	1.284	1.000	0.11	1.052	1.000	0.09
S2 vs. S4	6.401	0.000	0.66	4.484	0.001	0.53	6.513	0.000	0.62	4.602	0.001	0.48
S3 vs. S4	6.482	0.000	0.52	5.261	0.000	0.48	6.122	0.050	0.50	4.769	0.000	0.38