title: Stress Assignment Errors in Surface Dyslexia: Evidence from Two Italian Patients with a Selective Deficit of the Orthographic Input Lexicon.
abstract: Surface dyslexia designates a selective impairment in reading irregular words, with spared ability to read regular and novel words, following a cerebral damage usually located in the left dominant hemisphere. In Italian language, which is regular at the segmental level, surface dyslexia is characterized by stress assignment errors. Here we report on two cases of Italian surface dyslexic patients who produced stress assignment errors, mainly in reading irregular words. In reading nonwords they usually applied the regular stress pattern. Both patients were also impaired in lexical decision and in semantic discrimination tasks when the processing of homophones was required. Our patients' performance relied almost exclusively on the phonological coding of the stimulus, revealing a deficit in accessing the orthographical input lexicon. In addition, one patient showed a cerebral lesion limited to the right thalamus, providing evidence of a possible role of the right hemisphere in the reading process.
authors.affiliation: SpAtial, Motor & Bodily Awareness (SAMBA) Research Group, Psychology Department, University of Turin, Via Po 14, 10123 Turin, Italy ; Neuroscience Institute of Turin (NIT), University of Turin, Via Po 14, 10123 Turin, Italy.
authors.forename: Alessia
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-3117-7437
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Folegatti
authors.affiliation: SpAtial, Motor & Bodily Awareness (SAMBA) Research Group, Psychology Department, University of Turin, Via Po 14, 10123 Turin, Italy ; Neuroscience Institute of Turin (NIT), University of Turin, Via Po 14, 10123 Turin, Italy.
authors.forename: Lorenzo
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-0360-3152
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Pia
authors.affiliation: SpAtial, Motor & Bodily Awareness (SAMBA) Research Group, Psychology Department, University of Turin, Via Po 14, 10123 Turin, Italy ; Neuroscience Institute of Turin (NIT), University of Turin, Via Po 14, 10123 Turin, Italy.
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Berti
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, Trento University, Italy.
authors.forename: Roberto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Cubelli
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D004410:Dyslexia / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011932:Reading; D013312:Stress, Physiological / Q000502:physiology*; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D014706:Verbal Learning