Message from the dual orthographic lexica view: reports of my death are greatly exaggerated

How do we read and spell words? The prevailing view is that we possess one orthographic lexicon which allows us to both recognise and spell words. An alternative view suggests that there may be one orthographic lexicon used to recognise written words and a separate orthographic lexicon used for producing words (writing, oral spelling). For well known, familiar words, there should be a strong entry in both lexica. For unfamiliar words though, the entries may differ in ‘strength’ and ‘clarity’, leading to performance differences in reading and spelling of the same word. This talk summarises findings from experiments designed to detect such differences. If found, these differences would suggest that two orthographic lexica may actually exist.