Dynamics of the attentional control of word retrieval: Analyses of response time distributions.

Abstract

Since W. Wundt (1904) and H. J. Watt (1906), researchers have found no agreement on how goals direct word retrieval. A prevailing associative account (E. K. Miller & J. D. Cohen, 2001) holds that goals bias association strength, which determines retrieval latency and whether irrelevant words interfere. A symbolic account (A. Roelofs, 2003) holds that goals enable retrieval rules and predicts no strict dependence of interference on latency. Here, 3 chronometric experiments in which the role of relative retrieval latency was investigated through distributional analyses, following Watt, are reported. Participants verbally categorized picture-word pairs that were semantically related or unrelated, or they categorized single pictures or words. The pairs yielded semantic latency effects in both word and picture categorizing, although single words were categorized slower than single pictures. Semantic effects occurred in word categorizing even when postexposure of the pictures compensated for the difference in categorizing latency. Vincentile and ex-Gaussian analyses revealed that the semantic effects occurred throughout the latency distributions, excluding goal neglect as the cause of the effects. The results were interpreted as most consistent with the symbolic account, which was corroborated by computer simulations.Keywords: attention, computational modeling, distributional analysis, memory retrieval, word productionIn the early days of experimental psychology, Wundt (1904) criticized the now classic, associative Wernicke-Lichtheim model of word production by arguing that the retrieval of words from memory is an active goal-driven process rather than a passive associative process, as held by the model. According to Wundt, an attentional process centered in the frontal lobes of the human brain controls a word perception and production network located in perisylvian brain areas, described by the Wernicke-Lichtheim model. Whereas Wundt examined goal-driven processes in perception, Watt (1906) experimentally investigated goal-directed word retrieval. Successful realization of task-relevant associations, he demonstrated, cannot simply be the result of passive associations between stimuli and word responses. Instead, task goals play a vital role in determining the direction of the retrieval process. A century later, however, it is still a hotly debated issue how exactly goals direct word retrieval processes.The work reported in the present article is intended to shed light on the role of one factor in the word retrieval process, namely, relative retrieval latency. I begin by briefly describing the classic study of Watt (1906) and the seminal theoretical accounts of Selz (1913) and Müller (1913). Next, I discuss current theories of the control of word retrieval, which are descendents of these early theoretical ideas. I then present three chronometric experiments on categorizing pictures and words that examined the relative merits of two theories, namely, the associative account of Cohen, Dunbar, and McClelland (1990) and ...

Electrophysiological evidence that inhibition supports lexical selection in picture naming

“…Yet, it is relatively easy to see how models that assume that lexical selection involves competition between units might be extended to account for the effects of selective inhibition seen here. For instance, in WEAVERþþ (Levelt et al, 1999;Piai et al, 2014;Roelofs, 1992Roelofs, , 2003Roelofs, , 2008), a lemma is selected when the difference in activation levels between a target and competitors exceeds a critical difference in activation. When the difference is too small (i.e., lexical competition is strong), top-down inhibition may be triggered to reduce the activation level of the competitors.…”

Locus of semantic interference in picture naming: Evidence from dual-task performance.

“…els of spoken word production (e.g., Abdel Rahman & Melinger, 2009, Damian & Martin, 1999, Levelt et al, 1999, Roelofs, 1992, 2003, 2007, 2008a, 2008b, Schriefers et al, 1990, Starreveld & La Heij, 1996.…”

“…A prominent account of this effect places it at the stage of lexical selection (e.g., Levelt et al, 1999). This account has been computationally implemented in several models, including the WEAVERϩϩ model (Levelt et al, 1999;Roelofs, 1992Roelofs, , 2003Roelofs, , 2007Roelofs, , 2008aRoelofs, , 2008b and the model of Starreveld and La Heij (1996).The assumption that the semantic interference effect arises during lexical selection was recently challenged by Dell'Acqua, Job, Peressotti, and Pascali (2007). These authors used PWI as part of a psychological refractory period (PRP) procedure (Pashler, 1984(Pashler, , 1994 to determine at which stage the semantic interference effect emerged.…”

“…A prominent account of this effect places it at the stage of lexical selection (e.g., Levelt et al, 1999). This account has been computationally implemented in several models, including the WEAVERϩϩ model (Levelt et al, 1999;Roelofs, 1992Roelofs, , 2003Roelofs, , 2007Roelofs, , 2008aRoelofs, , 2008b and the model of Starreveld and La Heij (1996).…”

Sources of individual differences in the speed of naming objects and actions: The contribution of executive control

“…An important topic in current language production research is how the core processes of lexical access, captured in the models mentioned above, and executive control processes jointly determine performance in linguistic tasks (e.g., Roelofs, 2008b;. For example, in the WEAVER ++ model of spoken word production (Levelt et al, 1999;Roelofs, 2003Roelofs, , 2008c, information about words is stored in a large associative network, which is accessed by spreading activation. Executive control is achieved by condition-action rules that determine what is done with the activated lexical information depending on the goal and task demands in working memory.…”