From Inkmarks to Ideas: Current Issues in Lexical Processing - Softcover

"Sally Andrews, the editor of this excellent book, got it right. The chapters in this book provide a state of the art summary of current theories and methods of investigating lexical processing of orthographic input as seen by some of the most influential researchers in the field. Readers will find this book very well written, broad, informative, absorbing and thought provoking." - Derek Besner, University of Waterloo, Canada

"Reading is indeed an amazing feat, and this book illustrates the continuing excitement surrounding what is still undoubtedly a central topic in cognitive psychology. The present volume successfully integrates the (geographic) hemispheres in providing a "global" approach to single word reading. This impressive collection of chapters certainly suggests that words are still where the action is." - Jonathan Grainger, Director, Cognitive Psychology Laboratory, University of Provence

Reading is one of the most sophisticated demonstrations of human pattern recognition and symbolic processing skill. Skilled readers effortlessly comprehend written text at rates of at least 300 words per minute, despite the complex interactions between perceptual, cognitive and memory processes required for effective comprehension. Understanding how we achieve this remarkable feat has been a focus of investigation since the birth of experimental psychology.

Over the last two decades, visual word recognition has been at the forefront of developments in cognitive science. This book brings together many of the most influential contributors to these developments to reflect on current issues in the cognitive science of lexical processing and the methods required for further progress. The first section focuses on computational models. Written words provide a fertile context for large-scale modeling and the domain of lexical retrieval has become a test-bed for evaluating competing theoretical frameworks. The later sections draw upon cognitive psychology, linguistics, philosophy, computer science and neuroscience to elaborate critical theoretical issues and to develop novel research tools.

From Inkmarks to Ideas provides advanced students and researchers with a comprehensive overview of the critical theoretical and empirical controversies in current research on the cognitive science of lexical processing and reading.