Pavlenko's keynote paper calls for a rethinking of models of the mental lexicon in the light of recent research into emotion and bilingualism. The author makes a convincing case for the inclusion of affective aspects in the study of the mental lexicon. Indeed, the knowledge of the degree of emotionality of a word and of its affective valence is…

Pavlenko urges the community of language researchers to modify their conceptions of the mental lexicon, based on findings from bilingualism and emotions. She makes a compelling case. While reading her article, one can temporarily forget that in contemporary practice, emotion is not regarded as relevant to the theoretical question of the structure…

J. S. Adelman and G. D. A. Brown (2008) provided an extensive analysis of the form of word frequency and contextual diversity effects on lexical decision time. In this reply, the current authors suggest that their analysis provides a valuable tool for the evaluation of models of lexical access and that the results they report are broadly…

As a result of the Reading First Program of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), the view of reading has narrowed. Individual state's Reading First professional development programs, and hence reading teachers across the United States, have spent the six years since the funding of the program in 2002 focusing beginning and developmental reading on…

This paper comments on the article by Plaut and Booth. Plaut and Booth's first simulation shows that there is essentially perfect discrimination between word and nonwords sharing the same orthographic structure when the simulation is carried out in the way we suggested. We take the view that Plaut and Booth's new simulation work settles little…

Evaluates the BIA model of bilingual word recognition in the light of recent empirical evidence. Points out problems with the model and proposes a new model, the BIA+. The new model extends the old one by adding phonological and semantic lexical representations to the available orthographic ones, and assigns a different role to the so-called…

Seven peer commentaries focus on an article that evaluated the BIA model of bilingual word recognition in the light of recent empirical evidence, pointed out problems with it, and proposed a new model, the BIA+. Raise several issues of concern. (Author/VWL)

Responds to comments written in response to an earlier article by that proposed a new model of bilingual word recognition. Clarifies aspects of the proposed model that have led to misunderstandings. (Author/VWL)

The parallel distributed processing model of visual word recognition in reading developed by Seidenberg and McClelland (1989) is extended through simulation. A response by Seidenberg and McClelland recognizes merits of the expanded model and outlines requirements for supplanting their original model. (SLD)

Addresses lack of overlap and intercommunication between research on early reading and reading comprehension. Discusses metacognitive control in reading and learning processes. Suggests the emancipation of attentional resources by the automatization of lower level word identification and higher level basic comprehension skills. Concludes with…

Considers the prospects and need for a psychologically plausible connectionist model of the development of word recognition skills. Emphasizes the importance of phonological skills as precursors and facilitators of learning to read. Argues that it may be possible to develop a connectionist model which will be more consistent with evidence from…

The target article represents a significant advance in the level of sophistication applied to models of bilingual word recognition, and Dijkstra and van Heuven are to be congratulated on this endeavour. Bearing in mind the success of the (computational) BIA model in capturing detailed patterns of experimental data, I look forward to future…

Using nonword repetition tasks as an experimental approach with both adults and children has become quite common in the past 10 to 15 years for studying lexical learning and phonological processing (e.g., Bailey & Hahn, 2001; Gathercole, Frankish, Pickering & Peaker, 1998; Munson, Edwards, & Beckman, 2005; Storkel, 2001; Vitevich & Luce, 2005). In…

Noting the limitations of recent word recognition research, this paper suggests ways that these limitations might be overcome and then extends these suggestions into a framework for distinguishing between good and poor readers' ability to comprehend words. The paper begins by reviewing the major models of word recognition and discussing their…

Shows how older, largely context-free models of reading and its instruction became changed into a multidimensional, context-dependent orientation toward written language and the reading process and concludes with suggestions for using a variety of contextual strategies to increase reading comprehension. (HOD)