{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,3]],"date-time":"2026-09-03T15:28:08Z","timestamp":1788449288585,"version":"build-2803163510"},"reference-count":51,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"2","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,2,16]],"date-time":"2021-02-16T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1613433600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Brain Sciences"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Acquired Neglect Dyslexia is often associated with right-hemisphere brain damage and is mainly characterized by omissions and substitutions in reading single words. Martelli et al. proposed in 2011 that these two types of error are due to different mechanisms. Omissions should depend on neglect plus an oculomotor deficit, whilst substitutions on the difficulty with which the letters are perceptually segregated from each other (i.e., crowding phenomenon). In this study, we hypothesized that a deficit of focal attention could determine a pathological crowding effect, leading to imprecise letter identification and consequently substitution errors. In Experiment 1, three brain-damaged patients, suffering from peripheral dyslexia, mainly characterized by substitutions, underwent an assessment of error distribution in reading pseudowords and a T detection task as a function of cue size and timing, in order to measure focal attention. Each patient, when compared to a control group, showed a deficit in adjusting the attentional focus. In Experiment 2, a group of 17 right-brain-damaged patients were asked to perform the focal attention task and to read single words and pseudowords as a function of inter-letter spacing. The results allowed us to confirm a more general association between substitution-type reading errors and the performance in the focal attention task.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/brainsci11020247","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,2,16]],"date-time":"2021-02-16T22:13:38Z","timestamp":1613513618000},"page":"247","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":8,"title":["The Focal Attention Window Size Explains Letter Substitution Errors in Reading"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"11","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-1055-8353","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Roberta","family":"Daini","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, 20126 Milan, Italy"},{"name":"COMiB\u2014Optics and Optometry Research Center, Universit\u00e0 degli studi di Milano-Bicocca &amp; NeuroMI\u2014Milan Center for Neuroscience, 20126 Milan, Italy"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-9632-850X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Silvia","family":"Primativo","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Human Sciences, LUMSA University, 00193 Rome, Italy"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-1975-0824","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Andrea","family":"Albonico","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, 20126 Milan, Italy"},{"name":"Departments of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V5Z 3N9, Canada"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Laura","family":"Veronelli","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Neurorehabilitation Sciences, Casa di Cura del Policlinico, 20144 Milan, Italy"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Manuela","family":"Malaspina","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, 20126 Milan, Italy"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Massimo","family":"Corbo","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Neurorehabilitation Sciences, Casa di Cura del Policlinico, 20144 Milan, Italy"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Marialuisa","family":"Martelli","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy"},{"name":"Neuropsychology Unit, IRCCS Fondazione Santa Lucia, 00179 Rome, Italy"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Lisa S.","family":"Arduino","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Human Sciences, LUMSA University, 00193 Rome, Italy"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,2,16]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"439","DOI":"10.1080\/02643298708252047","article-title":"\u201cNeglect dyslexia\u201d and the early visual processing of letters in words and nonwords","volume":"4","author":"Ellis","year":"1987","journal-title":"Cogn. 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