Laurent Cohen (Hôpital de la Salpêtrière, Paris), February 12

Words in the visual cortex

Abstract

The ventral occipitotemporal cortex is devoted to visual object recognition. Through education, a reproducible part of this region (the Visual Word Form Area) develops a specialization for reading, sometimes facing constraints from acquired or developmental brain disorders. Moreover, this region is not homogeneous, and computes different orthographic representations, which are used for different modes of reading. The specialization of the VWFA for reading may result from a combination of its visual processing capacities and its privileged links with language areas. Imaging studies in early blind subjects suggest that, in the absence of visual input, the VWFA region may act as a gateway into the visual cortex, allowing for its exaptation by general language processes.