All models of lexical access have a “perceptual representation” of a word as their input and lexical information as their output (such as meaning, pronunciation, etc.).
Among the most influential models are the following:
- Forster’s model of serial search,
- the logogen model,
- connectionist models and
- hybrid models.
The main differences between these models are related to the following fundamental features: autonomous vs. interactive processing; direct access (e.g., logogen and connectionist models postulate interactive direct access) to words vs. search (as in Forster’s access and master files). Connectionist models prevail in contemporary research.
It seems plausible that morphologically complex low-frequency words are decomposed into components and analyzed, while morphologically complex high-frequency words are listed in the lexicon for quick access; the same holds true for compound words, whose meaning cannot be guessed from their constituent parts.