It is possible that learning to see words and then representing the results in a format appropriate for language systems takes place in parallel cortical circuits, but it would seem inefficient to expect that the same complex learning takes place in multiple circuits. A conservative position to explain the Target Selective Inhibitor Library current data is that the VWFA has uniquely evolved the capability of providing properly formatted sensory information to language areas (Devlin et al., 2006 and Jobard et al., 2003). Another recent report supports this view, showing that the VWFA circuitry is useful in communicating even somatosensory data to language systems in congenitally blind subjects (Reich et al., 2011). Nevertheless, it

remains possible that circuits not identified in this study are capable of both recognizing the sensory information see more and communicating the information to language (Richardson et al., 2011). If so, the circumstances in which these alternative routes are utilized should be further explored. The format of word representations required by the language system is probably independent of

most basic visual features, such as letter case and font (Dehaene et al., 2001, Polk and Farah, 2002 and Qiao et al., 2010). Our results provide evidence that even when stimulus features initiate activation in different parts of early visual cortex, the VWFA can use the pattern of activity to recognize the presence of a word form. Yet this feature-tolerance cannot be based on learning, because our experience with words is specific to line contours and junctions. Learning in the VWFA and VOT related to word forms may instead be about the statistical regularities between abstract shape representations (Binder et al., 2006, Dehaene et al., 2005, Glezer et al., 2009 and Vinckier et al., 2007), independent of the specific visual features that define these shapes. Feature-independent word form responses in the VWFA parallel feature-independent object responses Rolziracetam in the nearby lateral occipital complex

(Ferber et al., 2003, Grill-Spector et al., 1998 and Kourtzi and Kanwisher, 2001). In the object recognition literature this feature-tolerance is thought to help recognize objects whose detailed properties (e.g., spectral radiance) can vary depending on viewing conditions (e.g., ambient lighting). The need for feature-tolerance is reduced in reading because words are typically differentiated by line-contours, but the capability may exist because the same cortical circuits produce the shape representations used for seeing words and objects. Rather than the VWFA specifically learning feature-tolerance for word shapes, feature-tolerance may be present throughout VOT for all shape recognition tasks, including word form recognition. If feature-tolerant responses for words in humans are a consequence of general visual processing, then one might expect that these representations also exist in homologous regions of non-human primates.