Communications in Humanities Research ISSN: 2753-7072
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Research Article

Causal Role for Visual Cortex in Processing Visual Semantics

Kei XieHarrow International School Hong Kong Bert ZhangWuhan Britain-China School*

* Corresponding author: [email protected]

Abstract

This article reviewed previous studies testing for the causal or correlational relationship between modality-specific brain regions (e.g. motor cortex) and processing of corresponding perceptual-motor semantics. The proposed experiment aimed to investigate the functional role of visual cortex in understanding visual-associated words by studying the selective effect of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to primary visual cortex on response time (RT) to visual-associated words in lexical decision task. Participants will receive either sham or true anodal-tDCS, then perform the auditory lexical decision task to decide if the stimulus is a word in English or a pseudoword word. The experimental prediction was that compared to sham tDCS, anodal tDCS will affect the RTs with visual-associated word stimuli significantly more than to nonvisual-associated word stimuli. If the experimental prediction is supported, then this experiment would provide additional empirical evidence for the embodied simulation hypothesis, whilst establishing a causal role for visual cortex in visual semantic processing.

Keywords: tDCS; embodied simulation hypothesis; lexical decision task; visual perception
Published: February 21, 2025
DOI: 10.54254/2753-7064/2024.21047
Volume: CHR Vol.55
pp. 27-33
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