Through computational modeling, here we examine whether visual and task characteristics of writing systems alone can account for lateralization differences in visual word recognition between different languages without assuming influence from left hemisphere (LH) lateralized language processes. We apply a hemispheric processing model of face recognition to visual word recognition; the model imp...

Grapheme-color synesthetes experience color, not physically present, when viewing symbols. Synesthetes cannot remember learning these associations. Must synesthetic percepts be formed during a sensitive period? Can they form later and be consistent? What determines their nature? We tested grapheme-color synesthete, MC2, before, during and after she studied Hindi abroad. We investigated whether ...

This paper describes a graphical tool used for generating and depicting rule grammars in the Java Speech Grammar Format (JSGF), which has been developed in the framework of the EC-funded research project GEMINI (Generic Environment for Multilingual Interactive Natural Interfaces, IST-2001-32343). A vocabulary builder component that produces the phonetic transcription of the words included in th...

In synaesthesia, stimulation of a sensory modality triggers abnormal additional perceptions. Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) was used in 18 grapheme-colour synaesthetes to investigate the neuro-anatomical basis of their abnormal perceptions. More specifically, we tested the hypothesis that in synaesthesia altered connectivity in temporo-occipital and parietal areas may be associated with grey mat...

With the globalization more and more words from other languages come into a language without assimilation to the phonetic system of the new language. To economically build up lexical resources with automatic or semi-automatic methods, it is important to detect and treat them separately. Due to the strong increase of Anglicisms, especially from the IT domain, we developed features for their auto...

Researchers have long suspected that grapheme-color synaesthesia is useful, but research on its utility has so far focused primarily on episodic memory and perceptual discrimination. Here we ask whether it can be harnessed during rule-based Category learning. Participants learned through trial and error to classify grapheme pairs that were organized into categories on the basis of their associa...

In this work, we introduce several models for grapheme-tophoneme conversion: a conditional maximum entropy model, a joint maximum entropy n-gram model, and a joint maximum entropy n-gram model with syllabification. We examine the relative merits of conditional and joint models for this task, and find that joint models have many advantages. We show that the performance of our best model, the joi...

In this paper we test several approaches to analysing grapheme codebook features for offline writer identification in medieval English scribal manuscripts. Current methods for selecting a codebook typically produce codebooks that perform no better than random grapheme selection, so our aim in this analysis is to identify potential methods of improving codebook selection. Three feature extractio...

Synaesthesia is a rare phenomenon in which stimulation in one modality (e.g., audition) evokes a secondary percept not associated with the first (e.g., colour). Prior work has suggested links between synaesthesia and other neurodevelopmental conditions that are linked to altered social perception abilities. With this in mind, here we sought to examine social perception abilities in grapheme-col...

In grapheme-color synesthesia, seeing particular letters or numbers evokes the experience of specific colors. We investigate the brain's real-time processing of words in this population by recording event-related brain potentials (ERPs) from 15 grapheme-color synesthetes and 15 controls as they judged the validity of word pairs ('yellow banana' vs. 'blue banana') presented under high and low vi...