In order to investigate how language and attention systems are affected by word boundary information during reading, we conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment in which text-color in naturally unspaced Chinese sentences were systematically manipulated in three experimental conditions, that is, text-color alternation consistent or inconsistent with word boundary (i.e., alternating-color word and non-word conditions), as well as a mono-color baseline condition. Twenty college students (14 females; 23.1 years old) were required to silently read 72 sentences during fMRI scanning. We found that the conditions of word boundary modulated the brain connections between the visual word form area (VWFA) and dorsal attention regions, and between the VWFA and language-related regions. These results suggest that the coordination between the VWFA and dorsal attention regions plays an important role in grouping characters and guiding the saccade according to perceptual grouping based on color, and that the connection between VWFA and MTG could be the neural mechanism of lexical access during Chinese text reading.

中文翻译：

---

交替颜色词影响汉语句子阅读：来自神经连接的证据

为了研究语言和注意力系统在阅读过程中如何受到词边界信息的影响，我们进行了功能磁共振成像 (fMRI) 实验，其中在三个实验条件下系统地操纵自然无间隔的中文句子中的文本颜色，即，与词边界一致或不一致的文本颜色交替（即交替颜色词和非词条件），以及单色基线条件。20 名大学生（14 名女性；23.1 岁）被要求在 fMRI 扫描期间默读 72 句话。我们发现词边界条件调节了视觉词形区 (VWFA) 和背侧注意区域之间以及 VWFA 和语言相关区域之间的大脑连接。