Selective inhibition and naming performance in semantic blocking, picture-word interference, and color–word Stroop tasks.

Abstract

In 2 studies, we examined whether explicit distractors are necessary and sufficient to evoke selective inhibition in 3 naming tasks: the semantic blocking, picture-word interference, and color-word Stroop task. Delta plots were used to quantify the size of the interference effects as a function of reaction time (RT). Selective inhibition was operationalized as the decrease in the size of the interference effect as a function of naming RT. For all naming tasks, mean naming RTs were significantly longer in the interference condition than in the control condition. The slopes of the interference effects for the longest naming RTs correlated with the magnitude of the mean interference effect in both the semantic blocking task and the picture-word interference task, suggesting that selective inhibition was involved to reduce the interference from strong semantic competitors either invoked by a single explicit competitor or strong implicit competitors in picture naming. However, there was no correlation between the slopes and the mean interference effect in the Stroop task, suggesting less importance of selective inhibition in this task despite explicit distractors. Whereas the results of the semantic blocking task suggest that an explicit distractor is not necessary for triggering inhibition, the results of the Stroop task suggest that such a distractor is not sufficient for evoking inhibition either.

Switching between spoken language-production tasks: the role of attentional inhibition and enhancement

“…For a computationally implemented model of the role of attentional enhancement in word and phrase production, we refer to Roelofs (2003Roelofs ( , 2006Roelofs ( , 2008aRoelofs ( , 2014, and for the role of enhancement, updating, and shifting, we refer to Roelofs (2007Roelofs ( , 2008b and Roelofs and Piai (2011). The results of the present experiments highlight the importance of including inhibition in accounts of the attentional control of phrase production, in line with the findings of Shao, Roelofs, Acheson, and Meyer (2014) and Shao et al (2015) on single word production.…”

“…The existing results do not allow for a distinction between inhibition and enhancement of task set in Stroop task-switching. Evidence from nonswitching Stroop colour naming suggests that inhibition is not involved (Lamers, Roelofs, & Rabeling-Keus, 2010;Pratte, Rouder, Morey, & Feng, 2010;Shao, Roelofs, Martin, & Meyer, 2015). This would make Stroop task switching different from switching between types of noun phrases, where the available evidence suggests that inhibition is involved, as we indicate next.…”

“…Moreover, inhibition has been associated with certain characteristics of the tail of RT distributions (Van den Wildenberg et al, 2011). Studies have shown that these characteristics are observed in performing several interference tasks but not in colour-word Stroop (Lamers et al, 2010;Pratte et al, 2010;Shao et al, 2015), also suggesting that inhibition is not engaged in the Stroop task. Thus, our evidence that participants do not inhibit word reading in Stroop colour naming is in line with extant behavioural and neuroimaging findings.…”

Electrophysiology of cross-language interference and facilitation in picture naming

“…Naming RT is typically longer on incongruent than on congruent Stroop trials, and longer in semantically homogeneous than in heterogeneous blocks of trials (e.g., Shao, Roelofs, Martin, & Meyer, 2015). In these other naming paradigms, effects are also associated with ERP modulations in the N400 time window (e.g., Liotti, Woldorff, Perez III, & Mayberg, 2000, for Stroop; Aristei et al, 2011, for semantic blocking).…”

Neural correlates of spoken word production in semantic and phonological blocked cyclic naming

“…1 The blocked cyclic naming paradigm is complex in that it involves multiple cognitive components, such as language-specific skills as well as top-down control strategies (e.g. lexical selection, priming, learning, task-representation; Belke et al, 2005;Belke & Stielow, 2013;Oppenheim, Dell, & Schwartz, 2010;Shao, Roelofs, Martin, & Meyer, 2015;see Belke, 2017 for a review). Therefore, it is critical to understand the mechanisms involved in the blocked cyclic naming paradigm in order to use it effectively as a tool to investigate language processing.…”