Deep dyslexia and the right-hemisphere hypothesis for semantic paralexia: a reply to Marshall and Patterson

Studies of deep dyslexia have conferred prominence upon observations of semantic paralexia (e.g. reading "town" as "city"). Landis et al. (Neuropsychologia 21, 359-364, 1983) have reported evidence indicating that such errors arise in the right hemisphere. However, Marshall and Patterson (Neuropsychologia 21, 425-427, 1983) have advanced both empirical and theoretical arguments against this interpretation: the present paper examines these arguments and finds them seriously flawed. It therefore concludes in favour of the right-hemisphere hypothesis for semantic paralexia.