The role of the Graphemic Buffer in spelling: Evidence from a case of acquired dysgraphia

In this paper, we investigate the reading performance of a patient previously reported as having an impairment at the level of the graphemic buffer (Kay & Hanley, 1994). Despite his spelling problems, this patient is good at reading familiar words, at reading nonwords, and at written lexical decision. This pattern of performance is discussed with respect to Caramazza, Capasso, and Miceli's (1996) recent claim that damage to the graphemic buffer leads to a problem in reading that will be obvious especially when the patient is asked to read nonwords.

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Note: Does the Graphemic Buffer Play a Role in Reading?

Hanley¹,

Kay²

1998

“…However, the combination as a whole was first realized in studies carried out in the 1960s and early 1970s (e.g., Marshall & Newcombe, 1966Shallice & Warrington, 1970;Wickelgren, 1968). In the 1970s and 1980s the approach led to models being developed in a wide variety of cognitive domains, sometimes independently of experimental behavioural studies on the normal system itself and sometimes in complement to them (e.g., reading, Coltheart, Patterson & Marshall, 1980;Marshall & Newcombe, 1973;Patterson, Coltheart, & Marshall, 1985;writing, Beauvois & Derouesne, 1981;Caramazza, Miceli, Villa, & Romani, 1987; face perception, Bruce & Young, 1986; semantics, Warrington, 1975;Warrington & McCarthy, 1987; language systems, Schwartz, Saffran, & Marin, 1980;long-term memory, Schacter & Tulving, 1994; short-term memory, Shallice & Warrington, 1970). I will call the information-processing models used in the earlier type of study in which the functions of separable individual components are characterized by a verbal label, classical modular models, where the word "modular" is used in a broad sense such as by Posner (1978).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive neuropsychology and its vicissitudes: The fate of Caramazza's axioms

Shallice

2015

Cognitive neuropsychology is characterized as the discipline in which one draws conclusions about the organization of the normal cognitive systems from the behaviour of brain-damaged individuals. In a series of papers, Caramazza, later in collaboration with McCloskey, put forward four assumptions as the bridge principles for making such inferences. Four potential pitfalls, one for each axiom, are discussed with respect to the use of single-case methods. Two of the pitfalls also apply to case series and group study procedures, and the other two are held to be indirectly testable or avoidable. Moreover, four other pitfalls are held to apply to case series or group study methods. It is held that inferences from single-case procedures may profitably be supported or rejected using case series/group study methods, but also that analogous support needs to be given in the other direction for functionally based case series or group studies. It is argued that at least six types of neuropsychological method are valuable for extrapolation to theories of the normal cognitive system but that the single- or multiple-case study remains a critical part of cognitive neuropsychology's methods.

“…We assume that letter-shape and -name representations are selected serially. For this reason, graphemic representations are assumed to be processed by a working memory system referred to as the graphemic buffer (Caramazza, Miceli & Villa, 1987) or orthographic working memory (see Buchwald and Rapp, 2009) while letter shape or letter name selection takes place.…”

Section: Perseverations As a Tool To Investigate Orthographic Represementioning

confidence: 99%

The analysis of perseverations in acquired dysgraphia reveals the internal structure of orthographic representations

Fischer‐Baum

Rapp

2014

At a minimum, our long-term memory representations of word spellings consist of ordered strings of single letter identities. While letter identity and position must certainly be represented, it is by no means obvious that this is the only information that is included in orthographic representations, nor that representations necessarily have a one-dimensional “flat” structure. Evidence favors the alternative hypothesis that orthographic representations, much like phonological ones, are internally rich, complex multi-dimensional structures, though many questions remain regarding the precise nature of the internal complexity of orthographic representations. In this investigation, we test competing accounts of the internal structure of orthographic representations by analyzing the perseveration errors produced by an individual with acquired dysgraphia, LSS. The analysis of preservation errors provides a novel and powerful method for investigating the question of the independence of different representational components. The results provide clear support the hypothesis that letter quantity and syllabic role information are associated with, but separable from, letter identity information. Furthermore, the results indicate that digraphs, letter pairs associated with a single phoneme (e.g. the SH in FISH) are units of orthographic representation. These results contribute substantially to the further development of the multi-dimensional hypothesis, providing both new and converging evidence regarding the nature of the internal complexity of orthographic representations.