title: From word superiority to word inferiority: visual processing of letters and words in pure alexia.
abstract: Visual processing and naming of individual letters and short words were investigated in four patients with pure alexia. To test processing at different levels, the same stimuli were studied across a naming task and a visual perception task. The normal word superiority effect was eliminated in both tasks for all patients, and this pattern was more pronounced in the more severely affected patients. The relationship between performance with single letters and words was, however, not straightforward: One patient performed within the normal range on the letter perception task, while being severely impaired in letter naming and word processing, and performance with letters and words was dissociated in all four patients, with word reading being more severely impaired than letter recognition. This suggests that the word reading deficit in pure alexia may not be reduced to an impairment in single letter perception.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , University of Copenhagen , Copenhagen , Denmark.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Habekost
authors.forename: Anders
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Petersen
authors.forename: Marlene
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Behrmann
authors.forename: Randi
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Starrfelt
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D020237:Alexia, Pure / Q000503:physiopathology*; D032882:Comprehension / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D011932:Reading; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D014825:Vocabulary
keywords: Letter perception; Letter-by-letter reading; Word length effect; Word reading