What’s in a name? The characterization of pure alexia

Pure alexia is a selective impairment of reading in the absence of other language deficits and occurs as a consequence of brain injury in previously lit-erate individuals. The syndrome has intrigued researchers for well over a century and is the most studied of the acquired reading disorders. Pure alexia has been extensively investigated over the last 40 years within the framework of cognitive neuropsychology, but the syndrome, as a clinical entity, much predates the inferential methodology of cognitive neuropsychology. It is based on empiri-cal generalizations by clinicians of a counterintui-tive and relatively infrequent but, nonetheless, consistently observed set of behaviours in patients. However, different sets of critical features hav