Effects of lexicality, frequency, and spelling-to-sound consistency on thefunctional anatomy of reading

Functional neuroimaging was used to investigate three factors that affect r eading performance: first, whether a stimulus is a word or pronounceable no nword (lexicality), second, how often a word is encountered (frequency), an d third, whether the pronunciation has a predictable spelling-to-sound corr espondence (consistency). Comparisons between word naming (reading) and vis ual fixation scans revealed stimulus-related activation differences in seve n regions. A left frontal region showed effects of consistency and lexicali ty, indicating a role in orthographic to phonological transformation. Motor cortex showed an effect of consistency bilaterally, suggesting that motori c processes beyond high-level representations of word phonology influence r eading performance. Implications for the integration of these results into theoretical models of word reading are discussed.