ABSTRACT
Skilled readers are able to process written text at a remarkable speed that surpasses the rate of typical speech. A significant part of this fluent processing of connected writing involves computations applied to individual words. Individual words are processed in order to activate corresponding information about word meaning and pronunciation in the reader’s mental lexicon. The current chapter in this book on single word processes focuses on the contribution of electrophysiology for understanding single word processes, especially processes associated with accessing the visual forms of written words. Although some processes applied to single words in isolation have been demonstrated to interact with other processes related to text (for review see Balota, 1994), investigations of mental processes at the single word level represent a critical component process within reading, and also provide scientifically pragmatic paradigms for examining sub-processes involved, from processing the visual forms of words to accessing linguistic representations of phonology and semantics.
