There were no significant over-all effects of Category (F(1, 31) = 0.941, p = 0.340), Format (F(1, 31) = 0.0289, p = 0.595), nor any interaction between Category × Format (F(1, 31)=1.350, p = 0.254). Performance was equivalent www.selleckchem.com/products/sorafenib.html at all ages; there was no main effect of Age: F(2, 31) = 2.2, p = 0.13, no interaction of Age × Category (F(2, 31) = 0.436, p = 0.650), Age × Format (F(2, 31) = 0.021, p = 0.811), nor a 3-way Age × Category × Format interaction (F(2, 31) = 0.510,

p = 0.606). Response times did not depend on Category (F(1, 31) = 0.011, p = 0.916), Presentation mode (F(1, 31) = 0.286, p = 0.596) or an interaction between these factors (F(1, 31) = 0.037, p = 0.849). Response times decreased with age (F(2, 31) = 17.63, p < 0.001; see Fig. 1C) but this decrease was not modulated by Category or Format (Category × Age (F(2, 31) = 0.262, p = 0.771); Format × Age (F(2, 31) = 0.780, p = 0.467); Category × Format × Age (F(2, 31) = 0.355, p = 0.704). Hence, any age-related differences in category-dependent neural responses to pictures or words cannot simply be attributed to differences in task performance. Before the experiment we ensured that all subjects could match each animal and tool name in the stimulus set to its appropriate picture, such that even the youngest children were able to read and understand the meaning of all words in the scanner. A computerised, self-paced reading task outside the scanner revealed that reading accuracy

was high for the words in the experiment for each of three age groups (7- to 8-year-olds: 97% correct (SD = 0.03), 9- to 10-year-olds: 99% correct, (SD = 0.01), adults: all 100% correct). It is important to note that even Selleckchem SP600125 in this

self-paced task in which subjects could take breaks, the average time it took to pronounce a word and initiate presentation of the next one by pressing space was considerably shorter than the stimulus presentation time in the scanner (presentation time in scanner: 1.5 s, longest average reading time: 1.28 s). A standardized printed word pronunciation test (the Sight Word Efficiency Subtest of the TOWRE; (Torgesen et al., 1999), revealed that reading fluency Rebamipide improved substantially between age 7 and 10 years, with raw scores of 53.5 (SD = 13.7) at 7–8 years and 72.6 (SD = 6.5) at 9–10 years. TOWRE norms for adults are established at 98, (SD = 14), less than 2 standard deviations above the mean score of 9 to 10-year-olds. Indeed, the older children reported reading books such as Harry Potter in their spare time. In sum, all children in the study could read and comprehend the words in the experimental set, and the older children possessed good, close-to-adult-like reading fluency. Cortical areas with a preference for tool or animal pictures were defined as a set of contiguous voxels where (tool pictures–fixation) > (animal pictures–fixation) or (animal pictures–fixation) > (tool pictures – fixation) respectively, at a threshold of z > 2.