The scope and variety of interest areas identified with psy-
cholinguistic research have grown enormously during the last decade or
two. Although this recent flourishing has brought a great deal of new
knowledge and interdisciplinary cooperation to the field, it has also
brought its share of controversy and confusion as con- flicting views on
a number of important topics are hotly debated by their proponents. It
is for this reason that we have put together this book, a collection of
interviews with a number of leading scholars within the field, all of
whom differ--sometimes widely-- in their respective points of view. The
idea of using a uniform set of questions as points of de- parture for
each interview seemed to us a choice method for pro- viding readers with
a better understanding .of the complexities of the field. The questions
we have chosen to work with are crucial questions for psycho linguistics
since they form the framework for knowledge and research within the
field. It is our hope that by offering several different points of view
on psycholinguistic re- search, this volume will provide readers with a
better sense of the similarities and differences of opinion within these
different points of view. We would like to extend our thanks to the
various contributors to this book for their cooperation and patience
during the prepara- tion of this book, and to the publishers for their
steady encour- agement during our work.