Let's Not Miss the Forest for the Trees: A Reply to Montefinese and Vinson's (2015) Commentary on Vieth et al. (2014).

Abstract

In Vieth et al . (2014a), we conducted three experiments to examine semantic relatedness effects in the picture-word interference (PWI) paradigm. According to the lexical selection by competition account of spoken word production, feature overlap between the target picture and related distractor word induces semantic interference. However, this account has been challenged by studies demonstrating semantic facilitation in the PWI paradigm (e.g., Costa et al., 2005; Mahon et al., 2007; but see Hutson and Damian, 2014; Sailor and Brooks, 2014; Vieth et al., 2014b). In Vieth et al. (2014a), we investigated whether some reports of semantic facilitation in PWI might be due to the influence of distinctive features, i.e., features that quickly distinguish a concept from other similar concepts, as previous studies had not controlled for this variable (e.g., Costa et al., 2005; Mahon et al., 2007; Sailor and Brooks, 2014). In Experiment 3, we observed semantic interference for distractor words denoting a non-distinctive feature (e.g., knee) visible in the target picture (e.g., CAMEL), but no interference for distractor words denoting a distinctive feature (e.g., hump) compared to matched sets of distractors denoting unrelated features. We argued this finding is consistent with lexical selection by competition accounts, and might entail additional spread of activation to related concepts that share the non-distinctive feature via the appropriate category node (e.g., Animals). In their commentary, Montefinese and Vinson (2015) arrive at the opposite conclusion, arguing that feature distinctiveness does not affect the degree of interference in PWI. Here, we respond to each of their objections...