Evidence for Early Morphological Decomposition in Visual Word Recognition

■ We employ a single-trial correlational MEG analysis technique to investigate early processing in the visual recognition of morphologically complex words. Three classes of affixed words were presented in a lexical decision task: free stems (e.g., taxable), bound roots (e.g., tolerable), and unique root words (e.g., vulnerable, the root of which does not appear elsewhere). Analysis was focused on brain responses within 100–200 msec poststimulus onset in the previously identified letter string and visual wordform areas. MEG data were analyzed using cortically constrained minimum-norm estimation. Correlations were computed between activity at functionally defined regions of interest (ROIs) and continuous measures of the wordsʼ morphological properties. ROIs were identified across subjects on a reference brain and then morphed back onto each individual subjectʼs brain (n = 9). We find evidence of decomposition for both free stems and bound roots at the M170 stage in processing. The...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2010
• Where: JOCN
• Authors: Olla Solomyak, Alec Marantz
• Keywords: Complex Words, Free Stems, JOCN 2010, Morphological Properties