Letter-by-letter surface alexia

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Abstract
Patterson and Kay (1982) described two cases of letter-by-letter readers who also appeared to display the symptoms of surface alexia. Both of these patients suffered damage to the occipital and temporal lobes of the left hemisphere subsequent to haematomas. Two possible accounts of these patients' dual alexias were put forward. Each of these accounts was based upon a model that posits separate orthographic lexicons for reading and spelling. The current paper describes a patient who developed letter-by-letter reading and the symptoms of surface alexia following a left-hemisphere infarct in the territory of the posterior cerebral artery. The differences between this case and those reported by Patterson and Kay are discussed, and a third possible account of this combination of alexias, based upon a model that posits one shared orthographic lexicon, is presented.

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