< div> Andrew Ellis and Geoffrey Beattie are lecturers in psychology at the Universities of Lancaster and Sheffield respectively. Both the authors have contributed numerous articles to scientific journals and they are both recipients of the British Psychological Society's prestigious Spearman Medal for published psychological work of outstanding merit: Andrew Ellis gained the award in 1982 for his study of cognitive and neuropsychological aspects of language, and Geoffrey Beattie received it in 1984 for his work in psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics.< br> < /div>