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Brain, Vol. 116, No. 1, 21-37, 1993
© 1993 Oxford University Press

research-article

Reading in pure alexia

The effect of strategy

H. Branch Coslett1,3,4, Eleanor M. Saffran1,2,3,4, Sandy Greenbaum3,4 and Harry Schwartz3,4

1Departments of Neurology Philadelphia, USA 2Departments of Speech-Language-Hearing Philadelphia, USA 3Departments of Physiatry, Temple University Philadelphia, USA 4Departments of Moss Rehabilitation Hospital Philadelphia, USA

Correspondence to: Correspondence to: H. Branch Coslett, Department of Neurology, Temple University Hospital, Broad and Ontario Streets, Philadelphia, PA 19140, USA.

A number of investigators have demonstrated that patients with pure alexia comprehend briefly presented words which they are unable to explicitly identify. We suggested previously that these patients may read by means of two distinct procedures: a laborious letter-by-letter method and a ‘whole-word’ procedure which, at least initially, does not support explicit word identification. We report a test of this proposal in a patient with pure alexia. We reasoned that if the patient had access to two distinct and incompatible procedures, he might be induced to switch from one to the other by changing task demands. We found that when instructed to name words, the patient employed a letter-by-letter strategy; in contrast, when instructed to make lexical decision or semantic judgements about rapidly presented words, he appeared to use a ‘whole-word’ strategy. These data support the hypothesis that two distinct procedures are available to this patient. We argue, further, that it is necessary to suppress use of the letter-by-letter strategy to demonstrate whole word reading capability in pure alexics, and that failure to do so may account for negative findings in other cases reported in the literature.

Received September 23, 1991. Revised July 22, 1992. Accepted September 11, 1992.


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