Mental Chronometry of Speaking in Dialogue: Semantic Interference Turns into Facilitation

Abstract

Numerous studies demonstrate that the production of words is delayed when speakers process in temporal proximity semantically related words. Yet the experimental settings underlying this effect are different from those under which we typically speak. This study demonstrates that semantic interference disappears, and can even turn into facilitation, when semantically related words are embedded in a meaningful communicative exchange. Experiment 1 and 3 (each N=32 university students) implemented a picture-word interference task in a game played between two participants: one named the distractor word and, after a stimulus-onset-asynchrony of −150ms or −650ms, the other named a semantically related or unrelated target picture. Semantic interference reappeared with identical experimental parameters in a single-person picture-word interference setting (Experiment 2, N=32). We conclude that the inhibitory context effects leading to semantic interference in single-subject settings are attenuated whereas facilitatory effects are enhanced in communicative settings.HighlightsIn isolated speakers processing semantically related words interferes with speakingYet we typically speak to communicate with othersThis study transfers picture-word interference to a communicative settingSemantically related words produced by a partner do not interfere with speaking

Interference in the Shared-Stroop Task: A Comparison of Self- and Other-Monitoring

“…[39] found a reduced semantic interference effect in a condition in which participants named pictures and were (falsely) told they had a partner in another room who read the superimposed distractor words (see also [40]). Similarly, Kuhlen & Abdel Rahman [41] found that when the PWI task is embedded in a communicative game, with one participant naming the distractor words and the other, co-present participant naming the pictures, semantic interference is greatly reduced (compared with a non-communicative, standard version of the PWI task). A possible reason is that naming pictures in a communicative setting enhances semantic facilitation at the conceptual level (due to distractor and target belonging to the same semantic category).…”

Interference in the shared-Stroop task: a comparison of self- and other-monitoring

“…[39] found a reduced semantic interference effect in a condition in which participants named pictures and were (falsely) told they had a partner in another room who read the superimposed distractor words (see also [40]). Similarly, Kuhlen & Abdel Rahman [41] found that when the PWI task is embedded in a communicative game, with one participant naming the distractor words and the other, co-present participant naming the pictures, semantic interference is greatly reduced (compared with a non-communicative, standard version of the PWI task). A possible reason is that naming pictures in a communicative setting enhances semantic facilitation at the conceptual level (due to distractor and target belonging to the same semantic category).…”

“…in Stroop, the task-irrelevant stimulus is spatially co-located with the task-relevant stimulus and strongly activates the interfering response), evidence for reduced perceptual conflict in the joint task of Demiral et al . [6] and evidence for reduced interference in joint PWI tasks [39–41] means it is unclear whether one would expect joint Stroop interference to increase or decrease in a joint compared with an individual go-no-go version of the task.…”