Developmental dyslexia: passive visual stimulation provides no evidence for a magnocellular processing defect

Livingstone et al. [Livingstone, M. S., Rosen, G. D., Drislane, F. W. and Galaburda, A. M. Physiological and anatomical evidence for a magnocellular defect in developmental dyslexia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science U.S.A. 88, 7943-7947, 1991] presented evidence for a defect of the magnocellular visual processing stream in developmental dyslexia. We attempted to replicate this effect using transient and steady-state VEPs to checkerboard reversal stimuli in a group of adult developmental dyslexics. Several different reversal rates and contract levels were utilized. No differences were found between the dyslexic and control groups for the low-contrast, rapidly reversing patterns, nor for any combination of stimulus rate or contrast that was tested. Thus, these findings do not support a magnocellular processing deficit in developmental dyslexia.