Cortical responses to lipread and text-based audiovisual stimuli in adults with and without dyslexia
- 1Maastricht Brain Imaging Center, Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands
- 2Department of Psychological and Social Sciences, John Cabot University, Rome, Italy
- 3Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences, University of Luxembourg, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg
Abstract
Phonetic recalibration enables listeners to adjust their perception of ambiguous speech sounds based on visual contextual information. In line with a specific difficulty in forming letter-speech sound associations, adults with dyslexia have been found to show no text-based, but intact lipread-based, recalibration. The underlying neural mechanisms remain unclear however. This fMRI study examined cortical responses during text-based and lipread-based phonetic recalibration in 34 adults (18 with dyslexia, 16 typical readers). Participants were exposed to ambiguous speech sounds /a?a/ paired with disambiguating visual information (“aba”/“ada” text or lipread videos), followed by auditory-only categorization trials. Contrary to previous findings, both groups showed robust text-based and lipread-based behavioral recalibration effects, with no significant group differences between typical and dyslexic readers. Neuroimaging data did yield group differences in the underlying cortical activation. Most notably, dyslexic readers demonstrated increased bilateral fusiform activation compared to typical readers during exposure to lipread videos and ambiguous speech sounds, with left fusiform activation specifically correlating with increased phonological processing difficulties. Additionally, typical readers exhibited higher right frontal activation during text-based audiovisual stimuli. These findings suggest that while adults with dyslexia did not differ significantly from typical readers in behavioral recalibration effects, they employed different neural processing strategies. Unexpectedly, this was particularly the case for lipread audiovisual stimuli. The relatively increased fusiform and superior temporal activation to lipread audiovisual stimuli in dyslexic readers possibly relates to subtle difficulties in phonological processing of ambiguous speech signals.
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BibTeX
@article{cao2026cortical,
title = {{Cortical responses to lipread and text-based audiovisual stimuli in adults with and without dyslexia}},
author = {Yuewei Cao and Francesco Gentile and Francesco Gentile and Parisa Naseri and Linda Romanovska and Linda Romanovska and Milene Bonte},
journal = {Frontiers in Human Neuroscience},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.3389/fnhum.2026.1806964},
url = {https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2026.1806964},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Cortical responses to lipread and text-based audiovisual stimuli in adults with and without dyslexia
AU - Yuewei Cao
AU - Francesco Gentile
AU - Francesco Gentile
AU - Parisa Naseri
AU - Linda Romanovska
AU - Linda Romanovska
AU - Milene Bonte
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/23
JO - Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
DO - 10.3389/fnhum.2026.1806964
UR - https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2026.1806964
AB - Phonetic recalibration enables listeners to adjust their perception of ambiguous speech sounds based on visual contextual information. In line with a specific difficulty in forming letter-speech sound associations, adults with dyslexia have been found to show no text-based, but intact lipread-based, recalibration. The underlying neural mechanisms remain unclear however. This fMRI study examined cortical responses during text-based and lipread-based phonetic recalibration in 34 adults (18 with dyslexia, 16 typical readers). Participants were exposed to ambiguous speech sounds /a?a/ paired with disambiguating visual information (“aba”/“ada” text or lipread videos), followed by auditory-only categorization trials. Contrary to previous findings, both groups showed robust text-based and lipread-based behavioral recalibration effects, with no significant group differences between typical and dyslexic readers. Neuroimaging data did yield group differences in the underlying cortical activation. Most notably, dyslexic readers demonstrated increased bilateral fusiform activation compared to typical readers during exposure to lipread videos and ambiguous speech sounds, with left fusiform activation specifically correlating with increased phonological processing difficulties. Additionally, typical readers exhibited higher right frontal activation during text-based audiovisual stimuli. These findings suggest that while adults with dyslexia did not differ significantly from typical readers in behavioral recalibration effects, they employed different neural processing strategies. Unexpectedly, this was particularly the case for lipread audiovisual stimuli. The relatively increased fusiform and superior temporal activation to lipread audiovisual stimuli in dyslexic readers possibly relates to subtle difficulties in phonological processing of ambiguous speech signals.
SN - 1662-5161
ER -