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Because RGB did not make errors on these tasks comparable to the errors made on tasks requiring phonological output (Table 6.1), we can rule out the hypothesis that a semantic deficit was responsible for the errors observed in oral reading, oral picture naming, and oral tactile naming. Therefore, we can conclude that the probable locus of impairment in this patient was the POL, suggesting that the patient was unable to normally activate certain phonological representations in this component of the lexical system. The implication is that, for RGB, processing prior to the POL was intact; in oral reading, for example, the written form activated a representation in the OIL which allowed the patient to recognize the sequence of letters as familiar and, furthermore, a semantic representation was activated in the semantic system which permitted the patient to understand the meaning of the word he could not produce.
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