Title:

"Can I have a quick word? EEG/MEG evidence on the time course of visual word recognition"

Olaf Hauk is both a physicist and a psychologist and is an expert in a range of non-invasive neuroimaging methodologies, their integration and their use for addressing neurocognitive questions, such as language or numeracy.

Abstract:

I will present data on the spatio-temporal dynamics of visual word recognition, e.g. with respect to serial vs. parallel processing and early effects of task demands, using behavioural measures as well as EEG/MEG. My results show that lexical and semantic information retrieval can start in parallel within less than a quarter of a second, as the result of a fast sweep through the ventral stream, ending in anterior temporal lobes (ATL). In particular, I will present spatio-temporal evidence that ATL serves a role as a "semantic hub". In order to determine the contribution of sensorimotor systems to lexical semantics, we used a novel motor priming paradigm to detect effects of pre-activation in motor cortex on word processing. Finally, early brain responses in word recognition were found to be modulated by task demands, suggesting that early word recognition processes are more flexible and less automatic than previously thought.

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