Semantic interference is not modality specific: Evidence from sound naming with distractor pictures

Abstract

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Naming pictures and sounds: Stimulus type affects semantic context effects.

“…Each of these aspects could contribute to slower sound naming than picture naming. In fact, using the same set of target words we observed sizable latency differences in sound naming (above 1,000 ms; Wöhner et al, 2020) and picture naming (below 700 ms; Mädebach et al, 2017) in previous studies.…”

“…There are some other data that also speak against perceptual similarity as the driving force behind the differently sized interference effect in sound and picture naming. In a recent study, we investigated semantic context effects from distractor pictures in sound naming (Wöhner et al, 2020). We observed semantic context effects (i.e., congruency facilitation with congruent distractor pictures and semantic interference with semantically related distractor pictures compared with unrelated distractor pictures) that were much larger than what is typically found in picture naming with distractor words (e.g., Damian & Martin, 1999) or distractor sounds (e.g., Mädebach et al, 2017).…”

“…One promising type of such stimuli are environmental sounds (e.g., barking, hammering, honking ). Recent evidence suggests that such sounds are suitable for word production research (Mädebach et al, 2017, 2018; Wöhner et al, 2020). The aim of the present study was to test (a) whether semantic interference in the blocked-cyclic naming task is also obtained with sounds and (b) whether any such effect has the same properties as the corresponding effect obtained with pictures.…”

Neighing dogs: Semantic context effects of environmental sounds in spoken word production - a replication and extension

“…In both experiments, we also tested for congruency facilitation effects. Wöhner et al’s (2020) results demonstrate the feasibility of using sound naming to study semantic context effects and so provide complementary evidence to evaluate the task-specificity of critical findings in the production literature. However, as words are processed more quickly than picture distractors, it is likely that the time course of semantic interference will differ between the two when naming sounds.…”

A review of novel Cognitive Challenge Tests for the assessment of preclinical Alzheimer’s disease.

“…A combination of these processes led to cumulative semantic interference. These conceptual underpinnings formed the basis of several subsequent investigations on the effects of semantic interference on lexical retrieval tasks (Oppenheim et al, 2007; Wöhner et al, 2020). Atkins and Reuter-Lorenz (2011) has cogently argued that interference effects in and of themselves are one of the greatest contributors to short-term memory failure.…”