How do central processes cascade into peripheral processes in written language production ? by Sonia Kandel (LPNC & Gipsa-Lab Grenoble (Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CNRS))
With the arrival of internet, tablets and smartphones many people spend more time writing than speaking (email, chat, SMS, etc.). Despite the importance of writing in our society, the studies investigating written language production are scarce. In addition, most studies investigated written production either from a central point of view (i.e., spelling processing) or a peripheral approach (i.e., motor production) without questioning their relation. We believe, instead, that central and peripheral processing cannot be investigated independently. There is a functional interaction between spelling and motor processing. Letter production does not merely depend on its shape –and its specifications for stroke order and direction– but also on the way we encode it orthographically. For example, the movements to produce letters PAR in the orthographically irregular word PARFUM (perfume) are different than in the regular word PARDON (pardon). Spelling processes cascade into motor production. The nature of the spelling processes that are activated before movement initiation will determine the way the cascade will operate during movement production. Lexical and sub-lexical processes do not spread into motor execution to the same extent.
