Is there a distinct area within the human visual system that has a preferential response to numerals, as there is for faces, words, or scenes? We addressed this question using intracranial electrophysiological recordings and observed a significantly higher response in the high-frequency broadband range (high γ, 65-150 Hz) to visually presented numerals, compared with morphologically similar (i....

How does the human visual system accommodate expertise for two simultaneously acquired symbolic systems? We used fMRI to compare activations induced in the visual cortex by musical notation, written words and other classes of objects, in professional musicians and in musically naïve controls. First, irrespective of expertise, selective activations for music were posterior and lateral to activat...

_______________ This paper describes a qualitative study in which English as a second language (ESL) teachers’ views on the innovation of visual language (the use of both words and graphics, images, placement, etc. to make meaning) were explored. The researcher carried out interviews with seven experienced instructors who taught ESL to adults in intensive English programs. Five teaching sites i...

Standard accounts of pure alexia have favoured the view that this acquired disorder of reading arises from damage to a left posterior occipital cortex mechanism dedicated to the processing of alphanumeric symbols. We challenge these accounts in two experiments and demonstrate that patients with this reading deficit are also impaired at object identification. In the first experiment, we show tha...

We consider problems in sequence enumeration suggested by Stockhausen’s problem, and derive a generating series for the number of sequences of length k on n available symbols such that adjacent symbols are distinct, the terminal symbol occurs exactly r times, and all other symbols occur at most r − 1 times. The analysis makes extensive use of techniques from the theory of symmetric functions. E...

The simple deterministic grammar (s-grammar) is the standard form grammar in which the handles of the Z-rules are distinct for each nonterminal symbol Z. The language generated by an s-grammar is called the simple deterministic language (s-language). It is known that the s-languages have the the prefix property and that their equivalence problem is solvable. (Korenjak and Hopcroft, 1966). Using...

Electronic maps (E-maps) provide people with convenience in real-world space. Although web map services can display maps on screens, a more important function is their ability to access geographical features. An E-map that is based on raster tiles is inferior to vector tiles in terms of interactive ability because vector maps provide a convenient and effective method to access and manipulate we...

What kind of mental objects are letters? Research on letter perception has mainly focussed on the visual properties of letters, showing that orthographic representations are abstract and size/shape invariant. But given that letters are, by definition, mappings between symbols and sounds, what is the role of sound in orthographic representation? We present two experiments suggesting that letters...

In order to behave adaptively, attention can be directed in space either voluntarily (i.e., endogenously) according to strategic goals, or involuntarily (i.e., exogenously) through reflexive capture by salient or novel events. The emotional or motivational value of stimuli can also strongly influence attentional orienting. However, little is known about how reward-related effects compete or int...