Object-based versus object-centred neglect in reading words.

Abstract

Neglect dyslexia is a reading disorder which affects the identification of portions of words or sentences and is typically due to right-brain damage. Caramazza and Hillis (1990a, b) proposed a model of representation of words whereby various patterns of neglect dyslexia are attributed to selective impairment to the different forms of representation. According to the model, patients with first and second level deficits will "neglect" those parts of horizontally presented words that fall on one side of the retina, or on one side of the string centre, respectively, but will read vertically presented words without errors. A patient with a third level deficit will neglect letters at the beginning of the word irrespective of whether they fall on the right or left half of the retina, or on the right or the left of the word centre. In the present paper I describe an atypical pattern of neglect errors that is not easily explicable by this model and is better interpreted as an object-based neglect within an ego-centred frame of reference.