Abstract
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to estimate
neural activity while subjects viewed strings of consonants, digits,
and shapes. An area on or near the left fusiform gyrus was found
that responded significantly more to letters than digits. Similar
results were obtained when consonants were used whose visual features
were matched with the digits and when an active matching task was
used, suggesting that the results cannot be easily attributed to
artifacts of the stimuli or task. These results demonstrate that
neural specialization in the human brain can extend to a category
of stimuli that is culturally defined and that is acquired many years
postnatally.
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