The long term objective of the principal investigator is to understand reading processes. In addition to the practical benefits of understanding reading processes, this area yields key data concerning general theories of memory, perception, cognition, and linguistic processes. The overarching goal of understanding reading processes may only be accomplished by a better understanding of the developmental mechanisms that underlie reading competence, and the neuropsychological mechanisms that are vulnerable to trauma such as stroke. The latter concern motivates the proposed analysis of acquired dyslexia. In the present experiments, subjects with lesion- induced dyslexia will read aloud words and pseudowords (e. g. , MAVE) which are constructed in terms of state-of-the-art hypotheses concerning spelling-soundregularity. If these state-of-the-art hypotheses are confirmed, then the traditional regularity hypothesis of dual process theory will be falsified. Because this traditional hypothesis is the bedrock hypothesis of dual process theory, its falsification would bring into question the dual process logic that has guided neuropsychological analyses of reading processes. In anticipation of falsifying the traditional hypothesis computer simulations will be constructed to explore the explanatory potential of subsymbolic hypotheses. In these simulations, the effects of simulated lesions upon simulated readers' naming performance may be evaluated.
