JSLHR
HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced]


     

Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research Vol.50 716-731 June 2007. doi:10.1044/1092-4388(2007/050)
© American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow My Folders
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow reprints & permissions
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Wehner, D. T.
Right arrow Articles by Mody, M.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Wehner, D. T.
Right arrow Articles by Mody, M.

The Influence of Semantic Processing on Phonological Decisions in Children and Adults: A Magnetoencephalography (MEG) Study

Daniel T. Wehner
Seppo P. Ahlfors
Maria Mody
MGH/MIT/HMS Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, and Harvard–MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology Program, Cambridge, MA

Contact author: Maria Mody, Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Building 149 Thirteenth Street, Room 2301, Charlestown, MA 02129. E-mail: maria{at}nmr.mgh.harvard.edu.

Purpose: To examine the behavioral effects and neural activation patterns associated with implicit semantic processing influences on phonological judgments during reading in children and adults.

Method: Whole-head magnetoencephalography (MEG) recordings were obtained from 2 groups, children (9–13 years) and adults, performing a homophone judgment task. The stimuli consisted of pairs of sequentially presented written words that were either homophones, synonym foils, or unrelated control words.

Results: The difference in the time taken to respond to synonym pairs relative to control pairs of stimuli, called the semantic interference effect (SIE), was, on average, 24 ms for adults and 86 ms for children. Source analysis of the MEG data using minimum-norm estimation (MNE) yielded less activation in the adults for the synonym condition compared with the control condition in right anterior temporal and inferior frontal cortex 300–500 ms after the onset of the 2nd word in a pair, suggestive of semantic priming as well as inhibition of the SIE. A similar priming effect was observed for the children in left-anterior temporal cortex.

Conclusion: The observed group differences in the magnitude of the SIE and brain activation patterns may reflect developmental differences in the effects of semantic information on phonological decisions during word processing.

KEY WORDS: adults, children, magnetoencephalography, phonology, reading, semantics






HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
All ASHA Journals AJA AJSLP JSLHR LSHSS
Copyright © 2007 by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.