title: Semantic interference in language production is due to graded similarity, not response relevance.
abstract: There is an ongoing debate on the question whether semantic interference effects in language production reflect competitive processes at the level of lexical selection or whether they reflect a post-lexical bottleneck, occupied in particular by response-relevant distractor words. To disentangle item-inherent categorical relatedness and task-related response relevance effects, we combined the picture-word interference task with the conditional naming paradigm in an orthogonal design, varying categorical relatedness and task-related response relevance independent of each other. Participants were instructed to name only objects that are typically seen in or on the water (e.g. canoe) and refrain from naming objects that are typically located outside the water (e.g. bike), and vice versa. Semantic relatedness and the response relevance of superimposed distractor words were manipulated orthogonally. The pattern of results revealed no evidence for response relevance as a major source of semantic interference effects in the PWI paradigm. In contrast, our data demonstrate that semantic similarity beyond categorical relations is critical for interference effects to be observed. Together, these findings provide support for the assumption that lexical selection is competitive and that semantic interference effects in the PWI paradigm reflect this competition.
authors.affiliation: Humboldt Universtität zu Berlin, Rudower Chaussee 18, 12489 Berlin, Germany. Electronic address: sabrina.aristei@hu-berlin.de.
authors.forename: Sabrina
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Aristei
authors.forename: Rasha
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Abdel Rahman
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003213:Conditioning, Psychological; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007807:Language Tests; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009275:Names; D011930:Reaction Time; D011932:Reading; D012660:Semantics; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: 2340 cognitive processes; 2720 linguistics & language & speech; Conditional naming; Language production; Lexical competition; Response relevance; Semantic interference