W-4. "Syntactic" processing of complex numbers: Neuropsychological study

The production of syntactic errors of various types by single patients in number transcoding tasks has been interpreted as resulting from a dissociation between dealing with arabic script (impaired) and dealing with alphabetical script (preserved). This interpretation does not hold for patient R.M., who makes syntactic errors in a variety of tasks, including some, never administered before, that do not use the arabic code and yet need syntactic competence. A genuine disturbance to a syntactic component is a more likely interpretation for R.M.'s as well as previously described cases.