Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The unique role of the visual word form area in reading

2011; Elsevier BV; Volume: 15; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.tics.2011.04.003

1879-307X

Stanislas Dehaene, Laurent Cohen,

Visual perception and processing mechanisms

Reading systematically activates the left lateral occipitotemporal sulcus, at a site known as the visual word form area (VWFA). This site is reproducible across individuals/scripts, attuned to reading-specific processes, and partially selective for written strings relative to other categories such as line drawings. Lesions affecting the VWFA cause pure alexia, a selective deficit in word recognition. These findings must be reconciled with the fact that human genome evolution cannot have been influenced by such a recent and culturally variable activity as reading. Capitalizing on recent functional magnetic resonance imaging experiments, we provide strong corroborating evidence for the hypothesis that reading acquisition partially recycles a cortical territory evolved for object and face recognition, the prior properties of which influenced the form of writing systems.