Evidence from neglect dyslexia for morphological decomposition at the early stages of orthographic-visual analysis.

Julia Reznick,Naama Friedmann

doi:10.3389/fnhum.2015.00497

Abstract

This study examined whether and how the morphological structure of written words affects reading in word-based neglect dyslexia (neglexia), and what can be learned about morphological decomposition in reading from the effect of morphology on neglexia. The oral reading of 7 Hebrew-speaking participants with acquired neglexia at the word level—6 with left neglexia and 1 with right neglexia—was evaluated. The main finding was that the morphological role of the letters on the neglected side of the word affected neglect errors: When an affix appeared on the neglected side, it was neglected significantly more often than when the neglected side was part of the root; root letters on the neglected side were never omitted, whereas affixes were. Perceptual effects of length and final letter form were found for words with an affix on the neglected side, but not for words in which a root letter appeared in the neglected side. Semantic and lexical factors did not affect the participants' reading and error pattern, and neglect errors did not preserve the morpho-lexical characteristics of the target words. These findings indicate that an early morphological decomposition of words to their root and affixes occurs before access to the lexicon and to semantics, at the orthographic-visual analysis stage, and that the effects did not result from lexical feedback. The same effects of morphological structure on reading were manifested by the participants with left- and right-sided neglexia. Since neglexia is a deficit at the orthographic-visual analysis level, the effect of morphology on reading patterns in neglexia further supports that morphological decomposition occurs in the orthographic-visual analysis stage, prelexically, and that the search for the three letters of the root in Hebrew is a trigger for attention shift in neglexia.

Highlights

One of the intriguing questions in the cognitive psychology and neuropsychology of reading relates to how we read words like “segmentation,” “absolutely,” “smiling,” or “kangaroos.” If such morphologically complex words are represented in the orthographic lexicon in a decomposed form, access to the lexicon should use morphologically decomposed codes
Interim Summary: Morphological Structure Affects the Manifestation of Perceptual Effects Whereas in the calculation of all test words, length and final letter effects were found, these perceptual factors did not affect the reading of words ending with a root letter, only words ending with an affix
These questions were explored through the analysis of neglect errors in the reading of seven Hebrew-readers with neglexia and the effect of the morphological structure of the target words on their reading

Summary

Introduction

One of the intriguing questions in the cognitive psychology and neuropsychology of reading relates to how we read words like “segmentation,” “absolutely,” “smiling,” or “kangaroos.” If such morphologically complex words are represented in the orthographic lexicon in a decomposed form, access to the lexicon should use morphologically decomposed codes. Morphological Representation and Processing of Written Words The first stage of the reading process is a stage of visualorthographic analysis, according to the model we assume here, the dual route model for word reading (Morton and Patterson, 1980; Newcombe and Marshall, 1981; Coltheart, 1984, 1985; Marshall, 1984; Coltheart et al, 1993, 2001; Ellis and Young, 1996; Jackson and Coltheart, 2001). The information from the orthographicvisual analyzer is transferred to the other reading route— the sublexical route, which is based on grapheme-to-phoneme conversion, and enables the reading of unfamiliar words and of non-words

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