‘Lexical access’ refers to the retrieval of words from the mental lexicon, both in recognition and in production. Historically, the term emerged from the literature on visual word recognition, but more recently is considered to be theoretically non-neutral. The theoretical shift from the view that words are represented as localized lexical entries to one where they are distributed across a number of units has led to the more general term ‘lexical processing’ being preferred in the word recognition literature. Central issues emerging from this literature are described. These include the proposal that the orthographic representation of a word is recoded phonologically in silent reading, that the internal structure of a word plays a role in its processing (including its morphological, syllabic, and subsyllabic structure), and that lexical processing is influenced by the sentential context in which it occurs. Issues specific to spoken word recognition are also raised. Methods used to study lexical processing are described, highlighting the importance of the lexical decision task. In relation to language production, the term ‘lexical access’ is still widely used and is seen to involve two levels: form and function. It is suggested that lexical access in comprehension might be similarly conceived.
