Intended for advanced undergraduate and graduate students, this timely volume provides an excellent introduction to anyone who is interested in learning more about various psycholinguistic approaches to SLA (including more seasoned researchers who are interested in such methods).

VanPatten’s introduction provides the essentials of doing psycholinguistic research in SLA. Not only does it offer a good introduction to this subfield, but it also reviews theoretical underpinnings along with issues that have been (and continue to be) addressed by the proposed models and existing research. This introductory chapter is followed by seven chapters, each focusing on a different method—namely, self-paced reading, self-paced listening, eye-tracking with text, visual world eye-tracking, event-related potentials (ERPs), functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), translation recognition tasks, and crossmodal priming with sentences. All chapters are clearly written and organized in a straightforward and similar fashion: The history of the research method is presented first, followed by what the method measures as well as what has been investigated using this method. Then, information on developing experimental stimuli is reviewed along with how to code and analyze the data. Each chapter includes a review of an exemplary study to showcase more concretely what can be done with the method. Finally, a list of pros and cons of the method is provided. A bonus of each chapter is the list of questions designed around the method, which will prove to be quite useful in a classroom setting, and the suggestion for a research project or two, which could help students and scholars who are ready to try using the method for the first time get started with their project. The book ends with a chapter that aims (a) to summarize what has been presented in light of the critical areas of inquiry sketched in the first chapter, (b) to highlight methodological issues that need to be taken into consideration, and (c) to offer future directions for research.

Each chapter can be read independently, but those that are closely related (e.g., self-paced reading and listening) do refer to the first of the chapters for more details on specific parts, such as the data analysis. Although this minimizes some repetition throughout the volume, it forces readers to look elsewhere to find all the information necessary to understand all aspects of the method being presented. In a similar vein, the chapters on the ERPs and fMRI methods can only scratch the surface of what doing research using such methods would entail due to the complexity of the various items to consider and the complex analysis that needs to be conducted. If the goal is for readers to come out with enough information to have a solid understanding of what the method has to offer and of the findings provided by research that uses such a method, then these chapters will suffice. If, however, readers were hoping to have all the information needed to start designing their own experiment using that method, then they will be left a bit unsatisfied. However, such a brief introduction of these complex methods allows each method to have an equal amount of space in the volume, providing an unbiased perspective of all the methods presented. Additionally, authors of each chapter provide readers with ample additional sources to consult, which would allow interested researchers to conduct research with all the methods described in the present volume.

An independent glossary of the various terms introduced throughout the volume would have been a nice addition. Although a rather short table is included in the final chapter, it does not provide readers with a quick way to find what term is used with what method or with a quick and easy to find definition. Despite these minor limitations, this volume is highly recommended to anyone who would like to explore SLA by using psycholinguistic methods. It would not be surprising if this volume soon becomes a reference for those interested in learning more about additional methods of SLA research along with those who already conduct research in second language psycholinguistics.