ABSTRACT
This book has presented the central topics of psycholinguistics from the perspectives of cognitive psychology and, more especially, the new discipline of cognitive science. It has discussed the basic mechanisms and processes that mediate language use in normal adults, and has emphasized that an account of them should be both well specified and principled. General principles that are vaguely stated are of little scientific value, but neither are specific ideas that have no general import. In particular, a computer program that simulates language use is not a psycholinguistic theory, though it may embody one. If the program is to run, every stage of its operation must be specified. But the fact that a program produces realistic output does not necessarily mean that it is based on important cognitive principles. However, programming does have a place in psycholinguistic research – two major advantages accrue from turning ideas into programs. First, a program can be used to investigate the role of a general principle in an overall model of language use. Second, the writing of a program may itself suggest new theoretical ideas – a point that is often not appreciated by non-programmers.
