Abstract
This study investigated the nature of the interference effect of semantically related distractors in the picture-word interference paradigm, which has been claimed to be caused by either competition between lexical representations of target and distractor or by a late response exclusion mechanism that removes the distractor from a response buffer. EEG was recorded while participants overtly named pictures accompanied by categorically related versus unrelated written distractor words. In contrast to previous studies, stimuli were presented for only 250 ms to avoid any re-processing. ERP effects of relatedness were found around 290, 470, 540, and 660 ms post stimulus onset. In addition, related distractors led to an increase in midfrontal theta power, especially from about 440 to 540 ms, as well as to decreased high beta power between 40 and 110 ms and increased high beta power between 275 and 340 ms post stimulus onset. Response-locked analyses showed no differences in ERPs, however increased low and high beta power for related distractors in various time windows, most importantly a high beta power increase between −175 and −155 ms before speech onset. These results suggest that the semantic distractor effect is a combination of various effects and that the lexical competition account and the response exclusion account each capture a part, but not all aspects of the effect.
Highlights
One of the core processes of language production is the selection of the appropriate representations for a particular concept from our mental lexicons
This enabled us to test the prediction of the response exclusion account to find effects close to speech onset caused by the assumed removal of fully planned responses form a response buffer
Dell’Acqua et al (2010) suggested for a very early ERP effect that it might reflect feedback processes from the semantics of the picture to the processing of the distractor word. This fits with previous findings that beta decreases have been found for semantic binding and neural binding across domains. How do these results fit with the two accounts of the picture-word interference (PWI)? In line with the lexical competition account, we found both an ERP and time frequency effect during the time window of lemma retrieval
Summary
One of the core processes of language production is the selection of the appropriate representations for a particular concept from our mental lexicons. Some models do assume lexical selection by competition (e.g., Schriefers et al, 1990; Roelofs, 1992; Starreveld and La Heij, 1996; Levelt et al, 1999; Bloem and La Heij, 2003; Abdel Rahman and Melinger, 2009). They assume that the co-activation of semantically related representations interferes with the production of the target word, slowing down the production process and leading to slower word production.
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