May 31st 2024. 12:00h. Onsite session (Room M204). Language: Spanish.

Teresa Civera

University of Valencia

Visual word recognition is composed of a series of hierarchical stages, ranging from the perceptual analysis of the visual word factors until the word semantic access. The electroencephalography (EEG) is a technique which allows us to disentangle when each of these processes occurs by offering us the Event-Related Potentials (ERPs). ERPs provide high-resolution temporal information about the brain activity time-locked to the onset of a stimulus. In this presentation, we will analyze the electrophysiological impact of some perceptual factors (inter-letter spacing and word degradation) and lexical-semantic factors (word frequency and lexicality) in visual word recognition. In order to obtain this, two standard visual word recognition tasks were performed; a lexical decision task and a semantic categorization task. Results reveal perceptual factors have an impact on early ERP components (early perceptual stages) while lexical-semantic factors have an impact on later ERP components (lexical stages). Interestingly, results also reveal there may be an interaction of both factors when the stimulus is perceptually too ambiguous to be recognized. In those cases, top-down information percolates into early ERP components in order to facilitate word recognition.

Bio

I completed the degree in Speech Therapy in the 2018-2022 academic year and, afterwards, the Master's Degree in Speech Therapy Intervention Specialisation in 2022-2023, both at the University of Valencia. During these years I also enjoyed a collaboration grant at the Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, under the supervision of Marta Vergara-Martínez. I am currently starting my research career on the processes of visual word recognition using electroencephalography (EEG).