A Literature Review and New Data Supporting an Interactive Account of Letter-by-Letter Reading

Behrmann, Marlene; Plaut, David C.; Nelson, J.W.

doi:10.1080/026432998381212

Cited by 146 publications

(86 citation statements)

References 122 publications

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“…In order to model a peripheral deficit in letter perception of the sort postulated by Behrmann, Plaut, and Nelson (1998) to produce LBL reading, input letter activations were corrupted by Gaussian noise (SD ϭ .055). When this was done, correct performance dropped from 99.3% to 90.0% correct (averaged across 10 runs through the training corpus).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A connectionist approach to word reading and acquired dyslexia: extension to sequential processing

Plaut¹

1999

Cognitive Science

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A connectionist approach to word reading, based on the principles of distributed representation, graded learning of statistical structure, and interactivity in processing, has led to the development of explicit computational models which account for a wide range of data on normal skilled reading and on patterns of reading impairment due to brain damage. There have, however, been recent empirical challenges to these models, and the approach in general, relating to the influence of orthographic length on the naming latencies of both normal and dyslexic readers. The current work presents a simulation which generates sequential phonological output in response to written input, and which can refixate the input when encountering difficulty. The normal model reads both words and nonwords accurately, and exhibits an effect of orthographic length and a frequency-by-consistency interaction in its naming latencies. When subject to peripheral damage, the model exhibits an increased length effect that interacts with word frequency, characteristic of letter-by-letter reading in pure alexia. Although the model is far from a fully adequate account of all the relevant phenomena, it suggests how connectionist models may be extended to provide deeper insight into sequential processes in reading.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A connectionist approach to word reading and acquired dyslexia: extension to sequential processing

Plaut¹

1999

Cognitive Science

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“…Furthermore, impaired identification of even single letters is common in pure alexia, ranging in severity from complete global alexia to the occurrence of occasional errors with a significant slowing down of letter naming (for a review, see Behrmann et al, 1998b;e.g. Hanley and Kay, 1996).…”

Section: Pure Alexia and Regional Selectivitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Specialization within the ventral stream: the case for the visual word form area

2004

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Is there specialization for visual word recognition within the visual ventral stream of literate human adults? We review the evidence for a specialized ''visual word form area'' and critically examine some of the arguments recently placed against this hypothesis. Three distinct forms of specialization must be distinguished: functional specialization, reproducible localization, and regional selectivity. Examination of the literature with this theoretical division in mind indicates that reading activates a precise subpart of the left ventral occipitotemporal sulcus, and that patients with pure alexia consistently exhibit lesions of this region (reproducible localization). Second, this region implements processes adequate for reading in a specific script, such as invariance across upper-and lower-case letters, and its lesion results in the selective loss of reading-specific processes (functional specialization). Third, the issue of regional selectivity, namely, the existence of putative cortical patches dedicated to letter and word recognition, cannot be resolved by positron emission tomography or lesion data, but requires high-resolution neuroimaging techniques. The available evidence from single-subject fMRI and intracranial recordings suggests that some cortical sites respond preferentially to letter strings than to other categories of visual stimuli such as faces or objects, though the preference is often relative rather than absolute. We conclude that learning to read results in the progressive development of an inferotemporal region increasingly responsive to visual words, which is aptly named the visual word form area (VWFA).

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“…As a consequence, they show a word length effect in oral word reading. Pure alexia might result from different functional deficits [48], but an impairment of visual letter identification has been repeatedly underlined [1,4,11,47] (see [10] for review).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Visually- and motor-based knowledge of letters: evidence from a pure alexic patient

et al. 2002

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Degos. Visuallyand motor-based knowledge of letters: evidence from a pure alexic patient: Visually-and motorbased knowledge of letters. Neuropsychologia, Elsevier, 2002, 40 (8) In the days following the submission of this article, Professor Jean-Denis Degos died after a street accident. His co-authors wish to express their profound sorrow at this loss. His human sympathy, thoughtful appreciation of culture, and motivating enthusiasm will be deeply missed. AbstractWe describe a patient, VSB, whose reading was impaired as a consequence of a left temporal-parietal lesion, whereas writing was relatively preserved. At variance with other pure alexic patients described in the literature, VSB claimed to have become unable to mentally visualise letters and words. Indeed, his performance on a series of tests tapping visual mental imagery for orthographic material was severely impaired. However, performance on the same tests was dramatically ameliorated by allowing VSB to trace each item with his finger. Visual mental imagery for non-orthographic items was comparatively spared.The pattern of dissociation shown by VSB between impaired visual mental imagery and relatively preserved motor-based knowledge for orthographic material lends support to the view that separate codes, respectively based on visual appearance and on motor engrams, may be used to access knowledge of the visual form of letters and words.

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A Literature Review and New Data Supporting an Interactive Account of Letter-by-Letter Reading

Cited by 146 publications

References 122 publications

A connectionist approach to word reading and acquired dyslexia: extension to sequential processing

A connectionist approach to word reading and acquired dyslexia: extension to sequential processing

Specialization within the ventral stream: the case for the visual word form area

Visually- and motor-based knowledge of letters: evidence from a pure alexic patient

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