FUNCTIONAL MAGNETIC-RESONANCE-IMAGING DURING RECOGNITION OF WRITTEN WORDS - CHINESE CHARACTERS FOR CONCRETE OBJECTS VERSUS ABSTRACT CONCEPTS (VOL 30, PG 83, 1998)

An attempt was made to apply functional magnetic resonance imaging (fM RI) to reveal cortical areas activated upon presentation of two groups of Chinese characters in six normal right-handed, male, Japanese subj ects. Presentation of the characters representing 'abstract concepts' activated the bilateral occipital region without a significant differe nce between the bilateral occipital and temporal regions. Presentation of the characters representing 'concrete objects' resulted in signifi cantly stronger activation in the left occipital and temporal regions. These results suggest that recognition of concrete characters involve s a stronger initial process in the left occipital temporal cortices t han recognition of abstract characters. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Irel and Ltd. All rights reserved.