A new model of letter string encoding: simulating right neglect dyslexia.

Publisher Summary The chapter describes a theoretical model of oral reading that is developed to be consistent with experimental data from normal subjects and with existing neurobiological theory. Computer simulations based on this model can be lesioned to reproduce an error pattern obtained from a group of adult patients with left hemisphere lesions. The development of this model forced explicit consideration of a number of issues concerning normal word processing, especially the important issue of how letter order is encoded in words. The chapter also describes the genesis of the model, including the motivation for modifications made during its development, to illustrate the value of computational modeling for studying cognitive processes and their impairments. The main purpose for developing a model of written word processing can accommodate the finding that, patients with focal left hemisphere lesions tend to substitute words that overlap the first few letters of the target.