P. Mcleod et al., Attractor dynamics in word recognition: converging evidence from errors bynormal subjects, dyslexic patients and a connectionist model, COGNITION, 74(1), 2000, pp. 91-113
People make both semantic and visual errors when trying to recognise the me
aning of degraded words. This result mirrors the finding that deep dyslexic
patients make both semantic and visual errors when reading aloud. We link
the results with the demonstration that a recurrent connectionist network w
hich produces the meaning of words in response to their spelling pattern pr
oduces this distinctive combination of errors both when its input is degrad
ed and when it is lesioned. The reason why the network can simulate the err
ors of both normal subjects and patients lies in the nature of the attracto
rs which it develops as it learns to map orthography to semantics. The key
role of attractor structure in the successful simulation suggests that the
normal adult semantic reading route may involve attractor dynamics. (C) 200
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