Research On Chinese Native Speakers’Early Visual Cortex With PRF Method

Cognitive neuroscience researches on alphabetic languages have discovered that primary visual cortex can be selectively activated by words, with the activation location corresponding to the visual field position where words were presented. The underlying mechanism of this specialization may be visual perceptual learning which showed a strong retinal position effect. As in Chinese reading, visual span leans to right visual field along horizontal meridian, we hypothesized that long term Chinese reading experience may alter function and even structure of left primary visual cortex (LV1), especially areas representing right horizontal meridian (RHM). While given that Chinese writing system is quite different from alphabetic scripts, it is possible that Chinese reading may recruit different visual areas. To test these hypotheses, we accurately defined and analyzed six skilled Chinese native speakers’ V1, V2, V3and other regions of interest using population receptive filed analysis method (pRF). Our results showed that both surface area and population receptive field size of left ventral V3(LV3v) were significantly larger than right ventral V3(RV3v). Besides, receptive field size of LV3v was significantly correlated with subjects’Chinese character reading performance. Combined with results from other Chinese reading studies, our results revealed that both LV3v and bilateral V1involved in the Chinese reading processing. This different lateralization pattern of visual reading networks between Chinese and alphabetic writing systems supported the idea that visual areas recruited for reading varied with different writing systems and visual process demands.