Resembling letter-by-letter translation, Morse code can be used to investigate various linguistic components by slowing down the cognitive process of language decoding. Using fMRI and Morse code, we investigated patterns of brain activation associated with decoding three-letter words or non-words and making a lexical decision. Our data suggest that early sublexical processing is associated with activation in brain regions that are involved in sound-patterns to phoneme conversion (inferior parietal lobule), phonological output buffer (inferior frontal cortex: pars opercularis) as well as phonological and semantic top-down predictions (inferior frontal cortex: pars triangularis). In addition, later lexico-semantic processing of meaningful stimuli is associated with activation of the phonological lexicon (angular gyrus) and the semantic system (default mode network). Overall, our data indicate that sublexical and lexico-semantic analyses comprise two cognitive processes that rely on neighboring networks in the left frontal cortex and parietal lobule.

中文翻译：

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从亚词汇到词汇语义刺激处理的转变

类似于逐个字母的翻译，莫尔斯电码可用于通过减慢语言解码的认知过程来研究各种语言成分。使用 fMRI 和莫尔斯电码，我们研究了与解码三个字母的单词或非单词并做出词汇决定相关的大脑激活模式。我们的数据表明，早期的亚词汇处理与涉及声音模式到音素转换（下顶叶小叶）、语音输出缓冲区（下额叶皮层：pars opercularis）以及语音和语义自上而下的大脑区域的激活有关预测（下额叶皮层：三角肌部）。此外，后来有意义刺激的词汇语义处理与语音词汇（角回）和语义系统（默认模式网络）的激活有关。总体而言，我们的数据表明，亚词汇和词汇语义分析包括两个认知过程，它们依赖于左额叶皮层和顶叶小叶中的相邻网络。