CONCRETENESS EFFECTS IN WORD PRODUCTION BUT NOT WORD COMPREHENSION INDEEP DYSLEXIA

We present a patient, LW, who, like all deep dyslexics, is more able t o read aloud concrete than abstract words. In order to explore the cau se of this concreteness effect in word production, we tested LW's comp rehension of concrete and abstract words, in the Shallice and McGill w ord-picture matching task, in a synonym judgement task, and in a defin ition-to-word matching task. LW showed no significant impairment of he r comprehension of abstract high-frequency words in these tasks, despi te being unable to read most of the words aloud. We conclude that the concreteness effect in oral reading in LW cannot be due solely to a se mantic deficit for abstract words. We propose the NICE model, in which concreteness is an important dimension of normal lexicalisation, and suggest that deep dyslexia reflects the ability of qualitatively norma l but isolated semantics to access or ''drive'' unique entries in a ph onological output lexicon (subject to a pathological increased aphasic ''threshold'' for lexicalisation).