Abstract: As a core deficit of developmental dyslexia (DD), the rapid automatized naming (RAN) deficit has been widely proved in English and Chinese language studies, which shows slower naming speed compared with peers in RAN task. RAN task is a cognitive task that requires naming series of highly familiar stimuli, such as alphanumeric. As a complex process with multiple sub-components just as reading, the nature of rapid naming defects in developmental dyslexia remains controversial. Although many studies have focused on the essential of RAN deficit in DD, the controversy still exists. Recently researchers have used various methods to explore the RAN deficit of DD including eye-tracking technology, event-related potential (ERP) and functional magnetic resonance imaging(fMRI). In this review, different kinds of RAN tasks and their characteristics are introduced, including alphanumeric RAN and non-alphanumeric RAN, Chinese character RAN and letter RAN, serial RAN and discrete RAN. Each RAN task has its own traits and should be noted. The internal mechanism of RAN deficit in DD was then summarized. It has been shown in previous studies that DD is difficult in processes of eye-movement such as parafoveal processing and foveal processing. The cognition difficulties of DD are also introduced. Some researchers believe that the difficult of parafoveal processing is the main reason of RAN deficit in DD. However, it is still unclear whether less parafoveal preview benefits and more parafoveal load costs causes difficulties in processing the fovea. It should be noticed that DD is sensitive to the parafoveal preview information. On the other hand, other researchers believe that the foveal processing of DD is the main cause of RAN defects. They believe that RAN deficit is due to the poor automated translation of visual symbols processing in foveal processing. More attention to resource allocation for foveal processing results in less parafoveal previewing processing. Besides, some researches also explored the difficulties in cognition of RAN task in DD. Specifically, both working memory and inhibition ability are important to the processing in RAN task. In summary, the RAN deficit of DD at least resulted from difficulties in numerous aspects, and the complexity of RAN deficit in DD is undisputed. Based on the above review, some future research directions were given. Firstly, the explanations based on the mature people are questionable. Secondly, the brain imaging is beneficial to obtain different RAN subcomponents and should be paid more attention. Thirdly, most researches of parafoveal preprocessing was based on adults and future studies could expand the utilization of parafoveal preview information in beginning readers and DD children. Finally, although RAN tasks have been widely used to predict reading ability in children in Europe and America, there is no Chinese version. Therefore, further studies of RAN in Chinese should be carried out in the future. In brief, RAN is a complex task with a simple surface but many subcomponents. Therefore, the complexity of RAN deficit in DD should be noticed and different methods should be used in future studies.

Key words: developmental dyslexia, rapid automatized naming, parafoveal processing, foveal processing

摘要： 快速命名任务是一种需要命名多个高熟悉项目的认知任务，尤其适合用来对成因复杂的发展性阅读障碍进行研究。许多研究者使用不同类型的快速命名任务发现，发展性阅读障碍者的快速命名缺陷在眼动过程表现为中央凹和副中央凹的加工困难，在认知过程中表现为抑制能力较差等。未来的研究中应该注意到快速命名缺陷的复杂性，采用多种方法相结合的方式来探究快速命名缺陷的本质，从而建立系统性的假说。

关键词: 发展性阅读障碍, 快速命名, 副中央凹加工, 中央凹加工