Dictionaries of the Mind

How lexical information should be formulated, and how it is organized in computer memory for rapid retrieval, are central questions for computational linguists who want to create systems for language understanding. How lexical knowledge is acquired, and how it is organized in human memory for rapid retrieval during language use, are also central questions for cognitive psychologists. Some examples of psycholinguistic research on the lexical component of language are reviewed with special attention to their implications for the computational problem.