A case of normal word reading but impaired letter naming
A case of a word/letter dissociation is described. The present patient has a quasi-normal word reading performance (both at the level of speed and accuracy) while he has major problems in nonword and letter reading. More specifically, he has strong difficulties in retrieving letter names but preserved abilities in letter identification. This study complements previous cases reporting a similar word/letter dissociation by focusing more specifically on word reading and letter naming latencies. The results provide new constraints for modeling the role of letter knowledge within reading processes and during reading acquisition or rehabilitation.
Graphemic complexity and multiple print-to-sound associations in visual word recognition
Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands It has recently been reported that words containing a multiletter grapheme are processed slower than are words composed of single-letter graphemes (Rastle & Coltheart, 1998; Rey, Jacobs, Schmidt-Weigand, & Ziegler, 1998). In the present study, using a perceptual identification task, we found in Experiment 1 that this graphemic complexity effect can be observed while controlling for multiple print-to-sound associations, indexed by regularity or consistency. In Experiment 2, we obtained cumulative effects of graphemic complexity and regularity. These effects were replicated in Experiment 3 in a naming task. Overall, these r…