Left perirhinal cortex codes for similarity in meaning between written words: Comparison with auditory word input

Abstract

Left perirhinal cortex has been previously implicated in associative coding. According to a recent experiment, the similarity of perirhinal fMRI response patterns to written concrete words is higher for words which are more similar in their meaning. If left perirhinal cortex functions as an amodal semantic hub, one would predict that this semantic similarity effect would extend to the spoken modality. We conducted an event-related fMRI experiment and evaluated whether a same semantic similarity effect could be obtained for spoken as for written words. Twenty healthy subjects performed a property verification task in either the written or the spoken modality. Words corresponded to concrete an..