The two regions hypothesized to be semantic nodes were the AG and ITS. As mentioned above, the AG has been implicated in semantic processing across numerous studies (Binder et al., 2009). This is also true of the ITS (Binder et al., 2009 and Cattinelli et al., 2013). Involvement of the ITS with reading words of low spelling-sound consistency (Graves et al., 2010) also suggests that it may play a role in using semantics to aid the mapping from print to sound. Consistency effects arise from the quasiregular character of the mappings between

orthography and phonology in English. In the implemented computational models (e.g., Harm and Seidenberg, 1999 and Seidenberg and McClelland, 1989), consistency effects arise from exposure to many words with varying spelling-sound correspondences. In general, the orthography → phonology computation is more difficult for words containing spelling-sound correspondences that are unusual (“strange” Z-VAD-FMK concentration words such as yacht), atypical (e.g., pint vs. hint, lint, mint, tint et al.), or highly inconsistent (e.g., dose-lose-pose), with such effects modulated by frequency of exposure to the word itself and by reading skill. When the orthography → phonology computation is difficult, the parallel computation from orthography → semantics → phonology provides additional input necessary to converge on the correct

phonological code ( Plaut et al., 1996). This account is supported by the finding that semantic dementia (SD) patients, for whom use of the orthography → semantics → phonology pathway is impaired, perform poorly in reading inconsistent words aloud, producing regularizations UK-371804 (pronouncing blown to rhyme with crown) and other errors ( Woollams et al., 2007). Although the anterior temporal lobe is the primary area of degeneration in SD, with a relatively focal profile at Abiraterone research buy least in early stages for some cases ( Bright, Moss, Stamatakis, & Tyler, 2008), the posterior extent has been shown to include

the middle MTG and ITG ( Rohrer et al., 2009), spanning the ITS area considered here. The ITS is also associated with the activation of multiple word meanings ( Whitney, Jefferies, & Kircher, 2011). The priming of both meanings of homonym targets activated the ITS, whereas priming of only the subordinate meaning activated fronto-temporal areas for semantic control, but not the ITS. Together these findings suggest a key role for the ITS in processing lexical semantics. If the connectivity of these regions varies with the use of semantic information to help activate phonology, then it is the connections of these regions with areas related to phonological processing, such as the posterior superior temporal gyrus (pSTG; Graves et al., 2008, Indefrey and Levelt, 2004, Vigneau et al., 2006 and Wise et al., 2001) and posterior middle temporal gyrus (pMTG; Brambati et al., 2009, Graves et al., 2010, Indefrey and Levelt, 2004 and Richlan et al.