The 18 studies gathered in this volume explore the link between cognition and SLA. Despite the numerous perspectives characteristic of an edited volume, Pütz and Sicola managed to maintain a strong thematic link among the different contributions. The book is divided into three parts of equal strength: The first provides five theoretical approaches to cognition and language learning, the second focuses on the mental processes involved in the acquisition of a second language (L2), and the third reports on studies that focus on classroom research.

Each chapter could be read in isolation; however, this book can also be read as if it were a single-author volume. Indeed, all studies provide information on some aspect of cognitive issues in SLA research and thus warrant attention to broaden one’s view of the topic. Because it is impossible to do justice to all the contributions of an edited volume in a book review, suffice it to say that some well-established proposals are included, such as Ellis’s chapter on construction learning as category learning (see, e.g., Ellis, Reference Ellis, Robinson and Ellis2008) or Robinson’s (e.g., 2003) cognition hypothesis. This review will focus on the lesser known, yet cutting-edge studies.

First, Godfroid, Housen, and Boers report on a study that tests the noticing hypothesis (Schmidt, Reference Schmidt and Robinson2001) by means of a triangulation of data. Not only were think-aloud protocols and stimulated recall measures collected but also eye-tracking measures. Godfroid et al. sought to find out whether vocabulary items presented in four conditions—that is, (a) a control condition, (b) the pseudoword only, (c) the pseudoword followed by the existing word, and (d) the existing word followed by the pseudoword—would be noticed and later recalled by Dutch learners of English. Although the number of participants was a bit small in each condition (i.e., 3), the results from the three types of data suggest that learners were able to notice the pseudowords. The online measure of eye-tracking thus seems to provide a new technique for measuring noticing that would not interfere with the learners’ cognitive processing, as has been argued for think-aloud protocols, for instance.

Second, the chapter by Sotillo presents a study that investigated whether learners could notice linguistic forms during language-related episodes in synchronous computer-mediated communication. Sotillo includes a comparison of two media—text-based and video chat—during interactions between dyads of native-nonnative and nonnative-nonnative speakers. The results suggest that noticing and uptake is possible, which should certainly encourage researchers and teachers alike to use this collaborative learning environment.

Although Bromberek-Dyzman and Ewert’s contribution presents interesting findings, it should have included an example of each type of conversational implicature investigated not only for those readers who are more novice but also for those who would like to see whether the experimental item elicited what it was claimed to have elicited (e.g., understated criticism, indirectness). Similarly, Littlemore’s study could have benefited from the inclusion of the opposite first-language (L1)-L2 pairing to strengthen her claims about the interpretation of metaphors.

Based on the technical level of some of the information presented in the different chapters, advanced graduate students or experts in the field would seem to be the target audience. In short, this volume is a must-read for those interested in the topic of cognitive approaches to SLA and would undoubtedly provide a solid introduction to current research in this field.