Biology subjects

Tang, K. A.

Publications and source records attributed to Tang, K. A..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

Small or absent Visual Word Form Area is a trait of dyslexia

Understanding the balance between plastic and persistent traits in the dyslexic brain is critical for developing effective interventions. This longitudinal intervention study examines the Visual Word Form Area in dyslexic and typical readers, exploring how this key component of the brains reading circuitry changes with learning. We find that children with dyslexia show significant differences in Visual Word Form Area presence, size, and tuning properties compared to typical readers. While reading intervention improves reading skills and increases Visual Word Form Area size, disparities persist a year later, suggesting that Visual Word Form Area abnormalities are enduring traits of dyslexia. Our results reveal long-term neural and behavioral changes, while also elucidating stable differences in the functional architecture of the dyslexic brain. This work provides comprehensive insights into the potential and limitations of short-term learning-induced plasticity in human visual cortex.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2022

Engaging in word recognition elicits highly specific modulations in visual cortex

A persons cognitive state determines how their brain responds to visual stimuli. The most common such effect is a response enhancement when stimuli are task-relevant and attended rather than ignored. In this fMRI study, we report a surprising twist on such attention effects in the visual word form area (VWFA), a region that plays a key role in reading. We presented participants with strings of letters and visually similar shapes which were either relevant for a specific task (lexical decision or gap localization) or ignored (during a fixation dot color task). In the VWFA, the enhancement of responses to attended stimuli occurred only for letter strings, whereas the shapes evoked smaller responses when attended than when ignored. The enhancement of VWFA activity was accompanied by strengthened functional connectivity with higher-level language regions. These task-dependent modulations of response magnitude and functional connectivity were specific to the VWFA and absent in the rest of visual cortex. We suggest that language regions send targeted excitatory feedback into the VWFA only when the observer is trying to read. This feedback enables the discrimination of familiar and nonsense words, and is distinct from generic effects of visual attention.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2020

Measuring reading ability in the web-browser with a lexical decision task

An accurate model of the factors that contribute to individual differences in reading ability depends on data collection in large, diverse and representative samples of research participants. However, that is rarely feasible due to the constraints imposed by standardized measures of reading ability which require test administration by trained clinicians or researchers. Here we explore whether a simple, two-alternative forced choice, time limited lexical decision task (LDT), self-delivered through the web-browser, can serve as an accurate and reliable measure of reading ability. We found that performance on the LDT is highly correlated with scores on standardized measures of reading ability such as the Woodcock-Johnson Letter Word Identification test (r = 0.91, disattenuated r = 0.94). Importantly, the LDT reading ability measure is highly reliable (r = 0.97). After optimizing the list of words and pseudowords based on item response theory, we found that a short experiment with 76 trials (2-3 minutes) provides a reliable (r = 0.95) measure of reading ability. Thus, the self-administered, Rapid Online Assessment of Reading ability (ROAR) developed here overcomes the constraints of resource-intensive, in-person reading assessment, and provides an efficient and automated tool for effective online research into the mechanisms of reading (dis)ability.

animal behavior and cognition↗