TY - JOUR
T1 - Grapheme-to-lexeme feedback in the spelling system
T2 - Evidence from a dysgraphic patient
AU - McCloskey, Michael
AU - Macaruso, Paul
AU - Rapp, Brenda
N1 - Funding Information:
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Michael McCloskey, Department of Cognitive Science, Krieger Hall, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21218, USA (Email: michael.mccloskey@jhu.edu). This study was supported in part by NIH grant NS22201 and NIMH grant R29MH55758. We thank Donna Aliminosa for testing patient CM, and Marie-Josèphe Tainturier for helpful comments on the manuscript.
PY - 2006
Y1 - 2006
N2 - This article presents an argument for grapheme-to-lexeme feedback in the cognitive spelling system, based on the impaired spelling performance of dysgraphic patient CM. The argument relates two features of CM's spelling. First, letters from prior spelling responses intrude into subsequent responses at rates far greater than expected by chance. This letter persistence effect arises at a level of abstract grapheme representations, and apparently results from abnormal persistence of activation. Second, CM makes many formal lexical errors (e.g., carpet → compute). Analyses revealed that a large proportion of these errors are "true" lexical errors originating in lexical selection, rather than "chance" lexical errors that happen by chance to take the form of words. Additional analyses demonstrated that CM's true lexical errors exhibit the letter persistence effect. We argue that this finding can be understood only within a functional architecture in which activation from the grapheme level feeds back to the lexeme level, thereby influencing lexical selection.
AB - This article presents an argument for grapheme-to-lexeme feedback in the cognitive spelling system, based on the impaired spelling performance of dysgraphic patient CM. The argument relates two features of CM's spelling. First, letters from prior spelling responses intrude into subsequent responses at rates far greater than expected by chance. This letter persistence effect arises at a level of abstract grapheme representations, and apparently results from abnormal persistence of activation. Second, CM makes many formal lexical errors (e.g., carpet → compute). Analyses revealed that a large proportion of these errors are "true" lexical errors originating in lexical selection, rather than "chance" lexical errors that happen by chance to take the form of words. Additional analyses demonstrated that CM's true lexical errors exhibit the letter persistence effect. We argue that this finding can be understood only within a functional architecture in which activation from the grapheme level feeds back to the lexeme level, thereby influencing lexical selection.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=33344460608&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=33344460608&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/02643290442000518
DO - 10.1080/02643290442000518
M3 - Article
C2 - 21049332
AN - SCOPUS:33344460608
VL - 23
SP - 278
EP - 307
JO - Cognitive Neuropsychology
JF - Cognitive Neuropsychology
SN - 0264-3294
IS - 2
ER -