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[Vol.16 No.2 contents]
Japanese/English
Full Text of this Articlein Japanese PDF (464K) |
| ArticleTitle | Mechanism of "letter-by-letter" reading in a Japanese case of pure alexia |
| Language | J |
| AuthorList | Kae Kokubo1), Kyoko Suzuki1), Atsushi Yamadori1), Shigeki Imaizumi2), Takehide Onuma2) |
| Affiliation |
1)Section of Neuropsychology, Division of Disability Science, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine 2)Department of Neurosurgery, Sendai City Hospital |
| Publication | Japanese Journal of Neuropsychology: 16 (2), 145-153, 2000 |
| Received | Oct 4, 1999 |
| Accepted | Mar 21, 2000 |
| Abstract |
We reported a 24-year-old left-handed woman who showed a pure alexia after resection of a tumor in the left lateral ventricle. An MRI study demonstrated lesions in the left lateral temporal lobe, the left cuneus and the splenium of the corpus callosum. Neurological examination on admission was normal except for a right homonymous hemianopia. She read aloud kana words in the letter-by-letter fashion. Reading kanji word was poor and most of errors were confusion among several alternative names for one kanji letter. Time for reading aloud and matching identical words increased in line with the number of letters, which was more prominent with kana words than kanji words. With tachistoscopic presentation she could read and copy only up to the first two letters of a stimulus. These data suggest that her letter-by-letter reading was caused by impairment of processing many letters at a time. |
| Keywords | pure alexia, letter-by-letter reading, letter process, kana, kanji |
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