Intended to (1) provide new data and reconceptualizations relevant to evolving debates, (2) present summaries of current theoretical positions, and (3) in some cases, to juxtapose radically different opinions in a rapidly growing field, this volume offers a number of views on topics concerning visual word recognition. In chapter 1, Thomas H. Carr and Alexander Pollatsek give a broad yet detailed review of current theory and data in visual word recognition, discussing major classes of models and identifying the unique properties of individual models. In chapter 2, Marcus Taft provides a critical review of the evidence for and against involvement of morphemes and syllables in lexical access of visually presented words. In chapter 3, Curtis A. Becker reviews the issue of how context affects visual word recognition, while Ian Dennis, Derek Besner, and Eileen Davelaar report on a series of four experiments on the pseudohomophone effect in lexical decision in chapter 4. In chapter 5, Mark S. Seidenberg addresses the questions of how sentential context affects word recognition, and when and how phonological recoding affects visual word recognition. Glyn W. Humphreys, in chapter 6, reviews evidence indicating that there are dissociations between the various criteria that are currently thought to characterize automatic processing in word recognition and suggests that even some of the single criteria are inchoate. In the last chapter, Jim Cheesman and Philip M. Merikle address the question of whether word recognition is possible in the absence of conscious perceptual processing. (HOD)