The graphic media have, for some time now, been constructors of the social imagination, structures of thought, and devices for discussion in public forums. Their visual nature does nothing to lessen their cultural importance. On the contrary, the image is a powerful way of bringing home a point, both logically and emotionally. As David Olson 1 has pointed out, the way information is presented in the graphic media has helped to position us in the world, at least in those cultures such as ours where the use of the symbolism of visual communication is predominantly social.In the world of writing and the editorial media, design objects have allowed the construction of a particular type of discourse and the highly developed use of verbal and visual communication. In the conscious articulation of syntax and punctuation, in the organization of paragraphs, pauses, silences, and digressions, visual signs and their history play a considerable part. Different typefaces, grids, and graphic signs in a text are not only important for their perceptual or formal qualities, they also play a cognitive and symbolic role, and regulate our interpretation as we read. In Western tradition, this matrix has facilitated the generation of numerous devices from books to encyclopedias, magazines, and journals. More recently, with the development of design, the regulation of graphic-linguistic reading can be seen on television screens, in corporate images, and on posters.The technology of reading in our culture is quite sophisticated, as it has been built up over centuries of tradition. Nonetheless, the contemporary era has provided it with new devices and the advent of electronic microsystems has brought the most recent of technological transformations in graphic discourse: the digital revolution. Impetus has been given by the constant search for the expansion of textual and graphic code, the production of knowledge, the storing and exchange of information, and the expansive development of the global marketplace and of telecommunications to a technological synthesis. The set of mechanisms for graphic expression developed to date can be administered in the unique medium of the computer screen; the digital media has become foremost among production processes, allowing for a greater and faster flow of information.

In the present study, we assessed phonological priming during a visual lexical decision task (LDT) in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). This study was performed because phonological deficiencies have been reported in patients with PD, and such processes are critical predictors of reading performance. We tested for phonological priming effects using homonyms (zarjento-SARGENTO), where the prime differed from the target orthographically but with complete phonological overlap, and rhymes (cadera-MADERA), where the last two syllables of both the prime and the target are identical. Both types of priming were compared to the non-rhyme baseline condition (mercader-CUCHILLA) to assess the size of the priming effect. The results indicated that patients with PD exhibited a smaller phonological priming effect than controls in the homophonic condition. Patients with PD also displayed a lower percentage of correct responses and longer Reaction Times (RTs) than controls on both rhyme and homophone pairings. No group differences were found in the non-rhyme experimental condition. We concluded that phonological processing in patients with PD is important for lexical access during visual word recognition.

In the present study, we assessed phonological priming during a visual lexical decision task (LDT) in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). This study was performed because phonological deficiencies have been reported in patients with PD, and such processes are critical predictors of reading performance. We tested for phonological priming effects using homonyms (zarjento -SARGENTO), where the prime differed from the target orthographically but with complete phonological overlap, and rhymes (cadera -MADERA), where the last two syllables of both the prime and the target are identical. Both types of priming were compared to the non-rhyme baseline condition (mercader -CUCHILLA) to assess the size of the priming effect. The results indicated that patients with PD exhibited a smaller phonological priming effect than controls in the homophonic condition. Patients with PD also displayed a lower percentage of correct responses and longer Reaction Times (RTs) than controls on both rhyme and homophone pairings. No group differences were found in the non-rhyme experimental condition. We concluded that phonological processing in patients with PD is important for lexical access during visual word recognition.

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