The computational BIA+ model (Dijkstra & Van Heuven, 2002) has provided a useful account for bilingual word recognition, while the verbal (pre-quantitative) RHM (Kroll & Stewart, 1994) has often served as a reference framework for bilingual word production and translation. According to Brysbaert and Duyck (2010), a strong need is felt for a unified implemented account of bilingual word comprehension, lexical-semantic processing, and word production. With this goal in mind, we built a localist-connectionist model, called Multilink, which integrates basic assumptions of both BIA+ and RHM. It simulates the recognition and production of cognates (form-similar translation equivalents) and non-cognates of different lengths and frequencies in tasks like monolingual and bilingual lexical decision, word naming, and word translation production. It also considers effects of lexical similarity, cognate status, relative L2-proficiency, and translation direction. Model-to-model comparisons show that Multilink provides higher correlations with empirical data than both IA and BIA+ models.

Word translation is among the most sophisticated skills that bilinguals can perform. Brysbaert and Duyck (2010) have argued that the Revised Hierarchical Model (RHM; Kroll & Stewart, 1994), a verbal model for word translation in beginning and proficient bilinguals, should be abandoned in favor of connectionist models such as the Bilingual Interactive Activation Plus model (BIA+; Dijkstra & Van Heuven, 2002). However, the partially implemented BIA+ model for bilingual word recognition has neither been applied to bilinguals of different proficiency levels nor extended to the complex process of word translation. After considering a number of aspects of the RHM, a new localist-connectionist model, called Multilink, is formulated to account for the performance of bilinguals differing in their L2 proficiency in different tasks: lexical decision, language decision, and word translation.

In code-switching research, a distinction can be made between approaches that focus on linguistic and cognitive variables within single individuals and approaches that emphasize processes between individuals and the social and interactive context. These approaches differ in terms of both theory and methodology, and are difficult to integrate. In this chapter, we build on recent theoretical developments in psycholinguistics and propose a model of interactive alignment in code-switching. The model takes dialogue as the basic unit of analysis and interactive alignment as the main cognitive mechanism underlying regularities at both the individual and social level of processing. Along with the confederate-scripting technique as the central method to test its assumptions, we suggest that this interactive alignment model provides a way to integrate different approaches to code-switching in terms of both theory and methodology.

Like the BIA model (Dijkstra & van Heuven, 1998; van Heuven, Dijkstra & Grainger, 1998) and the BIA+ model (Dijkstra & van Heuven, 2002), the Multilink model is a symbolic, localist-connectionist, interactive model for lexical processing in the visual domain. In our view, the symbolic nature of Multilink makes it attractive and easily interpretable, even in relation to brain activity (Page, 2000, p. 501; 2017). Symbolic localist-connectionist models have a long tradition and have been applied to many different areas of cognitive research (e.g., Grainger & Jacobs, 1998). As a consequence, a lot is known about their properties and limitations (e.g., Bowers, 2009). These models can also easily be organized hierarchically in a cognitive functional way, and they have a reasonable degree of flexibility while still being falsifiable. Thus, despite the availability of other sophisticated frameworks for modeling language processes, a lot can still be gained from localist models.

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