Rapid word identification in pure alexia is lexical but not semantic

Following the notion that patients with purr alexia have access to two dist inct reading strategies-letter-by-letter reading and semantic reading-a tra ining program was devised to facilitate reading via semantics in a patient with pure alexia. Training utilized brief stimulus presentations and requir ed category judgments rather than explicit word identification. The trainin g was successful for trained words, but generalized poorly to untrained wor ds. Additional studies involving oral reading of nouns and of functors also resulted in improved reading of trained words. Pseudowords could not be tr ained to criterion. The results suggest that improved reading can be achiev ed in pure alexia by pairing rapidly presented words with feedback. Focusin g on semantic processing is not essential to this process. It is proposed t hat the training strengthens connections between the output of visual proce ssing and preexisting orthographic representations. (C) 2000 Academic Press .