Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-18T17:54:19.699Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Temporal processing deficits in letter-by-letter reading

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2006

JANET L. INGLES  and
GAIL A. ESKES
JANET L. INGLES
Affiliation:
School of Human Communication Disorders, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada Department of Psychology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada
GAIL A. ESKES
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada Department of Psychiatry, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Theories of the cognitive impairment underlying letter-by-letter reading vary widely, including prelexical and lexical level deficits. One prominent prelexical account proposes that the disorder results from difficulty in processing multiple letters simultaneously. We investigated whether this deficit extends to letters presented in rapid temporal succession. A letter-by-letter reader, G.M., was administered a rapid serial visual presentation task that has been used widely to study the temporal processing characteristics of the normal visual system. Comparisons were made to a control group of 6 brain-damaged individuals without reading deficits. Two target letters were embedded at varying temporal positions in a stream of rapidly presented single digits. After each stream, the identities of the two letters were reported. G.M. required an extended period of time after he had processed one letter before he was able to reliably identify a second letter, relative to the controls. In addition, G.M.'s report of the second letter was most impaired when it immediately followed the first letter, a pattern not seen in the controls, indicating that G.M. had difficulty processing the two items together. These data suggest that a letter-by-letter reading strategy may be adopted to help compensate for a deficit in the temporal processing of letters (JINS, 2007, 13, 110–119.)

Keywords

Acquired dyslexiaPure alexiaCerebrovascular accidentVisual perceptionReadingCase reports
Type
NEUROBEHAVIORAL GRAND ROUNDS
Information
Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , January 2007 , pp. 110 - 119
Copyright
© 2007 The International Neuropsychological Society

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Arguin, M., Bub, D., & Bowers, J. (1998). Extent and limits of covert lexical activation in letter-by-letter reading. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 15, 53–92.Google Scholar
Behrmann, M. & Bub, D. (1992). Surface dyslexia and dysgraphia: Dual routes, single lexicon. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 9, 209–251.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Behrmann, M., Nelson, J., & Sekuler, E.B. (1998a). Visual complexity in letter-by-letter reading: “Pure” alexia is not pure. Neuropsychologia, 36, 1115–1132.Google Scholar
Behrmann, M., Plaut, D.C., & Nelson, J. (1998b). A literature review and new data supporting an interactive account of letter-by-letter reading. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 15, 7–51.Google Scholar
Behrmann, M. & Shallice, T. (1995). Pure alexia: A nonspatial visual disorder affecting letter activation. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 12, 409–454.Google Scholar
Bowers, J.S., Arguin, M., & Bub, D.N. (1996). Fast and specific access to orthographic knowledge in a case of letter-by-letter surface alexia. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 13, 525–567.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Butler, B. & Hains, S. (1979). Individual differences in word recognition latency. Memory and Cognition, 7, 68–76.Google Scholar
Chun, M.M. & Potter, M.C. (1995). A two-stage model for multiple target detection in rapid serial visual presentation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 21, 109–127.Google Scholar
Duncan, J., Ward, R., & Shapiro, K. (1994). Direct measurement of attentional dwell time in human vision. Nature, 369, 313–315.Google Scholar
Farah, M. (1999). Are there orthography specific brain regions? In R.M. Klein & P.A. McMullen (Eds.), Converging methods for understanding reading and dyslexia (pp. 221–243). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Farah, M.J. & Wallace, M.A. (1991). Pure alexia as a visual impairment: A reconsideration. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 8, 313–334.Google Scholar
Friedman, R.B. & Alexander, M.P. (1984). Pictures, images, and pure alexia: A case study. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 1, 9–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedman, R.B. & Hadley, J.A. (1992). Letter-by-letter surface alexia. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 9, 185–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giesbrecht, B. & Di Lollo, V. (1998). Beyond the attentional blink: Visual masking by object substitution. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 24, 1454–1466.Google Scholar
Hanley, J.R. & Kay, J. (1996). Reading speed in pure alexia. Neuropsychologia, 34, 1165–1174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heaton, R., Avitable, N., Grant, I., & Matthews, C. (1999). Further cross-validation of regression-based neuropsychological norms with an update for the Boston Naming Test. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 21, 572–582.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henderson, L. (1982). Orthography and word recognition. London: Academic Press.
Kaplan, E., Goodglass, H., & Weintraub, S. (1983). The Boston Naming Test. Philadelphia: Lea & Febiger.
Kay, J., Lesser, R., & Coltheart, M. (1992). Psycholinguistic Assessments of Language Processing in Aphasia (PALPA). Hove: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Kiernan, R.J., Mueller, J., Langston, J.W., & Dyke, C.V. (1987). The Neurobehavioral Cognitive Status Examination: A brief but differentiated approach to cognitive assessment. Annals of Internal Medicine, 107, 481–485.Google Scholar
Kinsbourne, M. & Warrington, E.K. (1962). A disorder of simultaneous form perception. Brain, 85, 461–486.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kucera, F. & Francis, W.N. (1967). Computational analysis of present-day American English. Providence, RI: Brown University Press.
LaBerge, D.L. & Samuals, J. (1974). Toward a theory of automatic word processing in reading. Cognitive Psychology, 6, 293–323.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levine, D.N. & Calvanio, R. (1978). A study of the visual defect in verbal alexia-simultanagnosia. Brain, 101, 65–81.Google Scholar
Patterson, K. & Hodges, J.R. (1992). Deterioration in word meaning: Implications for reading. Neuropsychologia, 30, 1025–1040.Google Scholar
Patterson, K. & Kay, J. (1982). Letter-by-letter reading: Psychological descriptions of a neurological syndrome. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 34A, 411–441.Google Scholar
Plaut, D.C., McClelland, J.L., Seidenberg, M.S., & Patterson, K. (1996). Understanding normal and impaired word reading: Computational principles in quasi-regular domains. Psychological Review, 103, 56–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Potter, M.C., Chun, M.M., Banks, B.S., & Muckenhoupt, M. (1998). Two attentional deficits in serial target search: The visual attentional blink and an amodal task-switch deficit. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 24, 979–992.Google Scholar
Raymond, J.E. (2003). New objects, not new features, trigger the attentional blink. Psychological Science, 14, 54–59.Google Scholar
Raymond, J.E., Shapiro, K.L., & Arnell, K.M. (1992). Temporary suppression of visual processing in an RSVP task: An attentional blink? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 18, 849–860.Google Scholar
Raymond, J.E., Shapiro, K.L., & Arnell, K.M. (1995). Similarity determines the attentional blink. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 21, 653–662.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seiffert, A.E. & Di Lollo, V. (1997). Low-level masking in the attentional blink. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 23, 1061–1073.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seymour, P.H.K. & Porpodas, C.D. (1980). Lexical and non-lexical processing of spelling in dyslexia. In U. Frith (Ed.), Cognitive processes in spelling. London: Academic Press.
Shapiro, K., Hillstrom, A., & Husain, M. (2000). Selective attention to objects and time. In F. Boller, J. Grafman, & G. Rizzolatti (Eds.), Handbook of neuropsychology (2nd ed., Vol. 1) (pp. 427–458). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Shapiro, K.L. & Raymond, J.E. (1994). Temporal allocation of visual attention, inhibition or interference? In D. Dagenbach & T.H. Carr (Eds.), Inhibitory processes in attention, memory, and language. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Shapiro, K.L., Raymond, J.E., & Arnell, K.M. (1994). Attention to visual pattern information produces the attentional blink in RSVP. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 20, 357–371.Google Scholar
Visser, T.A.W., Bischof, W.F., & Di Lollo, V. (1999). Attentional switching in spatial and nonspatial domains: Evidence from the attentional blink. Psychological Bulletin, 125, 458–469.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warrington, E.K. & James, M. (1991). The Visual Object and Space Perception Battery. Suffolk, UK: Thames Valley Test Company.
Warrington, E.K. & Langdon, D. (1994). Spelling dyslexia: A deficit of the visual word-form. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry, 57, 211–216.Google Scholar
Warrington, E.K. & Langdon, D.W. (2002). Does the spelling dyslexic read by recognizing orally spelled words? An investigation of a letter-by-letter reader. Neurocase, 8, 210–218.Google Scholar
Warrington, E.K. & Shallice, T. (1980). Word-form dyslexia. Brain, 103, 99–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilkinson, G.S. (1993). WRAT-3. The Wide Range Achievement Test. Wilmington, DE: Wide Range, Inc.