Nienke van Atteveldt|Elia Formisano|Rainer Goebel|Leo Blomert
Integration of Letters and Speech Sounds in the Human Brain
Maastricht University|Maastricht University|Maastricht University|Maastricht University
h2abstracth2 people acquire literacy skills remarkable ease even though human brain evolutionarily adapted relatively new cultural phenomenon associations letters speech sounds form basis reading alphabetic scripts investigated functional neuroanatomy integration letters speech sounds using functional magnetic resonance imaging fmri letters speech sounds presented unimodally bimodally congruent incongruent combinations analysis singlesubject data group data aligned basis individual cortical anatomy revealed letters speech sounds integrated heteromodal superior temporal cortex interestingly responses speech sounds modalityspecific region early auditory cortex modified simultaneously presented letters results suggest efficient processing culturally defined associations letters speech sounds relies neural mechanisms similar naturally evolved integrating audiovisual speech