Words in the brain: the mental lexicon

Abstract

How does our brain represent and organize words? Researchers believe in the existence of something like a word inventory in the brain, which they call mental lexicon. This structure is the center of most cognitive models of speech, listening, writing and reading, through which one can have access to word forms and meanings. This paper aims to provide a general view of what the mental lexicon is. Primarily, the concept of lexicon and how this denomination was born are presented. Similarities and differences between a conventional dictionary and the mental lexicon are discussed. Questions such as how many words people know and how research evaluates this number are addressed. Then, different models on lexical organization are presented, approaching the connectivity relations between lexical items.