Tracking the Time Course of Competition During Word Production: Evidence for a Post-Retrieval Mechanism of Conflict Resolution.
Producing a word is often complicated by the fact that there are other words that share meaning with the intended word. The competition between words that arises in such a situation is a well-known phenomenon in the word production literature. An ongoing debate in a number of research domains has concerned the question of how competition between words is resolved. Here, we contributed to the debate by presenting evidence that indicates that resolving competition during word production involves a postretrieval mechanism of conflict resolution. Specifically, we tracked the time course of competition during word production using electroencephalography. In the experiment, participants named pictures in contexts that varied in the strength of competition. The electrophysiological data show that competition is associated with a late, frontally distributed component that arises between 500 and 750 ms after picture presentation. These data are interpreted in terms of a model of word production that relies on a mechanism of cognitive control.
Universidad de La Laguna, 38205 La Laguna, Spain.
Niels
N
Janssen
Universidad de La Laguna, 38205 La Laguna, Spain Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, 20009 Donostia, Spain.
Juan A
JA
Hernández-Cabrera
Universidad de La Laguna, 38205 La Laguna, Spain.
Maartje
M
van der Meij
Universidad de La Laguna, 38205 La Laguna, Spain Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, 20009 Donostia, Spain.
Horacio A
HA
Barber
D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D015233:Models, Statistical; D017008:Negotiating; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology; D012660:Semantics; D013334:Students; D013997:Time Factors; D014495:Universities; D014825:Vocabulary
EEG; competition; language production