The picture-word interference paradigm: conceptual effects in the production of verbs
Year: 2002
Type: article
Abstract: In recent years, experimental research on language production has started to make increasing use of the so-called picture-word interference paradigm to explore lexical retrieval processes. While providing useful information on the production of nouns, the paradigm has not led, so far, to comparable results with respect to the production of verbs. The paper presents an experiment and provides a discussion aiming at clarifying some of the variables that affect verb production and render semantic interference effects difficult to observe. 1. Interference effects and the production of nouns Interference paradigms have long been popular among psychologists studying cognitive phenomena. The technique is simple: participants are presented with a stimulus made up of two different components. Their task is to respond to one component of the stimulus, ignoring the other. For example, they could be presented with a word such as blue written in red ink, and requested to name the ink colour as quickly as possible (Stroop 1935). When the two components of the stimulus are a picture and a word, the task is typically one of picture naming: participants are instructed to ignore the distractor word and to name the picture, producing a target word. Usually, experimental conditions are manipulated by the researcher who varies the relationship between distractor and target words or the time interval between the presentations of picture and distractor (SOA: Stimulus Onset Asynchrony). Over a decade ago, in an influential study conducted in Dutch, Schriefers et al. (1990) employed this paradigm to study the production of nouns. They found that naming a picture (e.g., a dog) takes longer when the distractor is semantically related (e.g., cat) than when it is unrelated (e.g., roof) to the target (e.g., dog). This effect is observed when the distractor is presented shortly before or at the same time as the picture (SOA = -150/0 ms), but disappears when it is presented after the picture (SOA = + 150 ms). In contrast, when target and distractor are phonologically related (e.g., dog/fog) respon
Authors: Simona Collina, Patrizia Tabossi
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W26716707