This study compared the comprehension of syntactically simple with more complex sentences in Italian-English adult bilinguals and monolingual controls in the presence or absence of sentence-level interference. The task was to identify the agent of the sentence and we primarily examined the accuracy of response. The target sentence was signalled by…

Brysbaert and Duyck (this issue) suggest that it is time to abandon the Revised Hierarchical Model (Kroll and Stewart, 1994) in favor of connectionist models such as BIA+ (Dijkstra and Van Heuven, 2002) that more accurately account for the recent evidence on non-selective access in bilingual word recognition. In this brief response, we first…

Given that there are neural markers for the acquisition of a non-verbal skill, we review evidence of neural markers for the acquisition of vocabulary. Acquiring vocabulary is critical to learning one's native language and to learning other languages. Acquisition requires the ability to link an object concept (meaning) to sound. Is there a region…

Dijkstra and van Heuven lucidly summarize the important research generated by the BIA model and provide an excellent case for the BIA+ model with its critical separation of the identification system from the task/decision system. A keynote article necessarily offers a selective exposition of the authors' thinking and so my remarks are an…

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)

Presents a study in which German-English bilinguals decided whether a visually presented word, either German or English, referred to an animate or to an inanimate entity. Bilinguals were slower to respond on a language switch trial than on language non-switch trials but only if they had to make the same response as on the prior trial. (Author/VWL)

Investigates control of the bilingual lexico-semantic system in visual word recognition. Used a visual lexical decision task to explore control processes in proficient German-English bilinguals. Critical stimuli were interlingual homographs such as the low-frequency English word "tag," which means day in German. Overall, participants responded…

Responds to an article that argues that in the study of bilingualism, conceptual representations should be treated as related but not equivalent to word meanings, as knowledge-based, dynamic and language- and culture-specific. (Author/VWL)

Aims to foster discussion of the means by which bilinguals control their two language systems. Proposes an inhibitory control model that embodies the principle that there are multiple levels of control. The model is used to expand the explanation of the effect of category blocking in translation proposed by Kroll and Stewart (1994). (Author/VWL)

Replies to commentaries written by eight peers in response to an article the author wrote on the means by which bilinguals control their two language systems and in which he proposed an inhibitory control model that embodies the principle that there are multiple levels of control. (Author/VWL)

Proposes that the causal mechanisms of recovery patterns in bilingual aphasia can be partially revealed by combining neuropsychological and neuroimaging methods. Reviews potentials and limitations associated with functional neuroimaging experiments on normal and neurologically impaired patients and discusses different levels of description…