Examination of the split fovea theory in a case of pure left hemialexia

To address the extent to which the visual foveal representation is split, we examine the case of a patient, M. B., suffering from a left mesial occipital lesion and presenting a pure left hemialexia and a right hemianopia with a spared area of the macula. Reading performance on tachistoscopically presented four-letter words and pseudowords in the spared area of the right visual field was significantly better than reading performance in the intact left visual field. Reading performance in the spared area of the right visual field was also significantly better than reading performance of stimuli centred on the fovea. Moreover, a length effect was found only in the left half of pseudowords centred on the fovea, but not in the right half (up to five letters). These differences in reading efficiency between the left and right halves of the foveal region militates in favour of the split fovea theory and cannot be explained by the bilateral projection theory.