The Visual Word Form Areas Prefer Emojis to Text

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Abstract/Contents

Abstract: The Visual Word Form Areas (VWFAs) are two regions of the brain that have been found to be selective for processing words. My objective in this project is to determine the extent to which each VWFA is selective for the task of reading versus the visual presentation of text stimuli. I tested this hypothesis by using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging to scan subjects’ brains while they performed reading tasks and color-recognition tasks on English words formed by either text or emojis. The fMRI results allowed me to differentiate between neural responses from the different tasks and stimuli. My fMRI results suggest that the VWFAs are not selective for text stimuli; rather, they prefer emojis over text. Moreover, one or the other (depending on the participant) could be selective for the task of reading.

Type of resource	text
Date created	June 4, 2021

Author	Jorgensen, Julia Grace
Degree granting institution	Stanford University, Department of Symbolic Systems
Primary advisor	Grill-Spector, Kalanit
Advisor	Grotheer, Mareike

Subject	Stanford University
Subject	Stanford Vision and Perception Neuroscience Lab
Subject	Symbolic Systems
Subject	vision
Subject	perception
Subject	visual word form areas
Subject	brain
Subject	neuroscience
Subject	emoji
Genre	Thesis

Location	https://purl.stanford.edu/vn480br1366

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License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).

Preferred Citation: Jorgensen, Julia Grace. (2021). The Visual Word Form Areas Prefer Emojis to Text. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: https://purl.stanford.edu/vn480br1366

Undergraduate Honors Theses, Symbolic Systems Program, Stanford University

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