Adaptive Lexical Processing of Semantic Competitors Extends to Alternative Names: Evidence from Blocked-Cyclic Picture Naming

Abstract

When pictures are repeatedly named in the context of semantically related pictures (e.g., “sheep” in the context of “goat” and “horse” – homogeneous context) latencies are longer than when the pictures are repeatedly named in the context of unrelated pictures (e.g., “sheep” in the context of “table” and “hammer” – heterogeneous context). Adaptive models of word production attribute this semantic interference effect in blocked-cyclic naming (BCN) to an incremental learning mechanism which makes semantically related words that were activated but not selected less accessible for future retrieval. Recent results from a picture-word-interference (PWI) study, however, suggested that lexical alternatives (e.g., “bird” for “duck”), might be exempt from this mechanism (Kurtz et al., 2018). We tested whether converging evidence can be obtained in BCN. We embedded pictures named with basic-level category labels (e.g., “bird”) into contexts of pictures of specific exemplars named with subordinate-level labels (e.g., “duck”, “eagle”, “stork”). If lexical alternatives are generally exempt from incremental learning, interference in the homogeneous context should be found for subordinate-level targets but not for basic-level targets. Contrary to this prediction, interference was similar-sized. We discuss implications of these results for theories of incremental learning and the use of the PWI task in this context.

Repeated Naming Affects the Accessibility of Non-Selected Words: Evidence from Picture-Word Interference Experiments

“…With respect to their accessibility at the abstractlexical level, there does not seem to be any such special status and, hence, no challenge to incremental learning as a general mechanism in word production. This conclusion gets additional support from a recent study byWöhner et al (2022) which List of the experimental pictures and distractors used in Experiment 2. English translations are given in brackets.List of the experimental pictures and distractors used in Experiment 4.…”

“…These sets either contain pictures from the same semantic category (homogeneous context) or from different semantic categories (heterogeneous context). In this task, naming responses are slowed down in the homogeneous context, typically from the second cycle onwards (e.g., Abdel Rahman & Melinger, 2007;Belke et al, 2005;Damian et al, 2001;Damian & Als, 2005;Wöhner et al, 2022). This semantic interference effect has been explained as a result of incremental learning in the conceptual lexical network.…”

Repeated naming affects the accessibility of nonselected words: Evidence from picture–word interference experiments.

“…Together, these data qualify the conclusion by Kurtz et al that lexical alternatives might be special in that they are exempt from adaptive changes in word production. With respect to their accessibility at the abstract-lexical level, there does not seem to be any such special status and, hence, no challenge to an adaptive mechanism as a general feature of word production (see also Wöhner et al, 2023aWöhner et al, , 2023b, for corresponding evidence from a different task). From a methodological perspective, our data suggest that the PWI task is generally suited for addressing the issue of adaptive changes in the accessibility of abstract-lexical representations across naming episodes.…”

“…These sets either contain pictures from the same semantic category (homogeneous context) or from different semantic categories (heterogeneous context). In this task, naming responses are slowed down in the homogeneous context, typically from the second cycle onwards (e.g., Abdel Rahman & Melinger, 2007;Belke et al, 2005;Damian & Als, 2005;Damian et al, 2001;Wöhner et al, 2021Wöhner et al, , 2023aWöhner et al, , 2023b. In current models of word production, these semantic interference effects are explained as the result of changes in the connection weights in the conceptual-lexical network.…”