Row blindness in Gestalt grouping and developmental dyslexia.

A classic Gestalt figure is a 4 x 4 array of items grouped by similarity into either rows or columns. We found that some people do not see rows ("row blindness"). Furthermore, row blindness correlates with difficulties processing written language--more than half of the college-age dyslexics tested were row blind. Reading difficulties are probably not a cause of row blindness and forming rows by grouping is a part of reading, suggesting that row blindness might be one source of problems processing written language.