Ana Francisco will present “Audiovisual processing in dyslexia” in the Cognitive Bag Lunch series, Wednesday at noon in Tobin 521B. Abstract below. All are welcome!

The process of learning to read is lengthy and cognitively demanding. Nevertheless, the majority of us, if properly instructed, learn to read without problems. There is a significant minority of individuals, though, who struggle to acquire this fundamental skill. At least in alphabetic orthographies, a crucial phase in developing the ability to read is learning the socially agreed-upon associations between letters and speech sounds. In this sense, learning to read ultimately relies on the formation of automatic audiovisual associations. Importantly, this reliance of reading on audiovisual associations persists into adulthood, such that the expert reader continues to depend on these audiovisual objects. Yet, the relationship between reading ability and audiovisual processing is still not fully understood. In this talk, I will focus on such a relationship and argue, showing behavioral and neuroimaging evidence, for the presence of an audiovisual processing deficit in dyslexia.