Classification of Normal Reading Error Types

Abstract

In the alexia literature it is assumed that educated normals do not make reading errors. When the possibility that they do is brought to their attention, however, normal adult readers can indeed notice and identify reading errors. They find themselves retracing their steps when a word or word-string appears non-sensical. Two neurologically normal subjects collected 573 such ‘slips of the eye’ over the course of approximately one year. Errors were from newspapers and magazines; the subjects tore out the page with the target, circling it and writing the error. Errors were classified post-hoc into two major categories; about two-thirds were single word substitutions (e.g., “Adriatic” read as “Atlantic”), and the remainder consisted of heterogeneous errors, which were further subdivided. These data were not immediately comparable to those of brain-damaged patients because we looked at words in discourse context. However, for the single word substitution errors, with the exception of homonyms, there were no categories we found for these normals that have not been reported in brain-damaged patients. The data pattern suggests that normal adults employ an interactive approach in the task of silent reading. The variety and nature of the errors observed imply the availability and use of both top-down and bottom-up reading strategies.