Frontiers in Psychology (Jul 2014)

Devil in the Details? Developmental Dyslexia and Visual Long-Term Memory for Details

  • Lynn eHuestegge,
  • Lynn eHuestegge,
  • Julia eRohrßen,
  • Muna evon Ermingen-Marbach,
  • Julia ePape-Neumann,
  • Stefan eHeim

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00686
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 5

Abstract

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Cognitive theories on causes of developmental dyslexia can be divided into language-specific and general accounts. While the former assume that words are special in that associated processing problems are rooted in language-related cognition (e.g., phonology) deficits, the latter propose that dyslexia is rather rooted in a general impairment of cognitive (e.g., visual and/or auditory) processing streams. In the present study, we examined to what extent dyslexia (typically characterized by poor orthographic representations) may be associated with a general deficit in visual long-term memory for details. We compared object- and detail-related visual long-term memory performance (and phonological skills) between dyslexic primary school children and IQ-, age- and gender-matched controls. The results revealed that while the overall amount of long-term memory errors was comparable between groups, dyslexic children exhibited a greater portion of detail-related errors. The results suggest that not only phonological, but also general visual resolution deficits in long-term memory may play an important role in developmental dyslexia.

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