Investigate the Neural Substrates of Phonological Access by Using an ArtificialLanguage

Numerous approaches were used to investigate the reading process. Specifically, weinvestigate phonological access – a crucial component of reading. The present studyadopted a novel and effective strategy to investigate the distinct neural networks ofaddressed and assembled phonologies. Two groups of native English speakingparticipants learned a new artificial language either through addressed phonology orassembled phonology by performing three artificial language learning tasks during fMRIin two hours (short artificial language training paradigm). Based on the whole brainanalysis, we found that addressed phonology relied more on lateral occipital cortex,angular gyrus and supramarginal gyrus, whereas assembled phonology relied more oninferior frontal gyrus, frontal pole, lateral occipital cortex, superior frontal gyrus andparacingulate gyrus. Furthermore, we found that the strategy shift from assembledphonology to addressed phonology occurred in two hours by comparing brain activationselicited by trained words with activations elicited by new words in assembled phonology.Our results showed that the short artificial language training with direct and indirectphonological access differentially activated the different neural networks of addressedand assembled phonologies. Further, our results showed strong evidence of dissociationof addressed and assembled phonology.