Additivity of semantic and phonological effects: Evidence from speech production in Mandarin

Abstract

A number of previous studies using picture–word interference (PWI) tasks conducted with speakers of Western languages have demonstrated non-additive effects of semantic and form overlap between pictures and words, which may indicate underlying non-discrete processing stages in lexical retrieval. The present study used Mandarin speakers and presented Chinese characters as distractors. In two experiments, we crossed semantic relatedness with “pure” phonological (i.e., orthographically unrelated) relatedness and found statistically additive effects. In a third experiment, semantic relatedness was crossed with orthographic overlap (phonological overlap was avoided), and once again we found an additive pattern. The results are discussed with regard to possible cross-linguistic differences between Western and non-Western languages in terms of phonological encoding, as well as concerning the locus of relatedness effects in PWI tasks.

Keywords:

• Speech production
• Semantic interference
• Phonological facilitation
• Lexical selection
• Mandarin

Notes

¹The only exception to this universal pattern that we are aware of was reported in a study by Melinger and Abdel Rahman (2004) in which, rather than using “mixed” distractors, two distractor words were simultaneously presented with the target picture, and hence in the mixed condition, semantic and form information was delivered by two separate elements (e.g., the target “pig” paired with the two distractors “pill” and “dog”). In this variant of the task, semantic and form-based effects were statistically additive. It was proposed that PWI effects are sensitive to how the information is introduced into the system. Specifically, in the single mixed distractor case, semantic and phonological codes engage (via feedback) in a form of mutual “resonance” such that lexical entry and phonological form activate each other. By contrast, with double distractors, distractor representations cannot benefit from this form of co-activation since semantically related and form-related codes correspond to two separate entries.

²However, it should be noted that Meyer and Schriefers (1991) showed form-related priming effects in PWI tasks from distractors that overlapped in the word-final position, which suggests that cohorts are probably not the only cause of form-related facilitation.

³This line of reasoning was taken by Roelofs et al. (1996) in order to account for the non-additive effects reported by Starreveld and La Heij (1995, 1996b): The mixed distractor “calf” activates the lemma “cat” by means of a direct route, or by means of phonological input representation (indirect route). Hence, a mixed distractor will activate its own lemma and also that of the target lemma “cat”. The same holds for an orthographically related distractor (i.e., “cap”) to the target “cat” (Roelofs, 2004; Roelofs et al., 1996). In this case, as argued by Roelofs et al. (1996), the finding of non-additivity between semantic and form relatedness in PWI tells us very little about how the processing stages of lexical–semantic retrieval and phonological encoding relate to each other.

⁴Concerning the claim that the Chinese orthographic system dissociates sound from spelling, two aspects deserve highlighting. First, Chinese characters consist of sub-components (“radicals”), which provide probabilistic information about meaning and pronunciation of the underlying character (Zhou, 1978). DeFrancis (1989) emphasized that Chinese orthography is a speech-based script since more than 85% of Chinese characters are phonograms. This could be seen as at odds with our claim that by using Chinese materials, we are able to fully dissociate sound from spelling. However, in the system of Chinese characters, numerous homophones exist for a syllabic pinyin (regardless of tone), and these homophones are typically orthographically unrelated. For example, for the syllabic pinyin /zha/, corresponding Chinese characters could be 虎 (/hu3/), 狐(/hu2/), or 胡 (/hu2/), with no orthographic overlap between them. Therefore, for our phonologically related or semantically plus phonologically related distractors, orthographic overlap with the target names could be fully avoided. Second, younger Chinese individuals will have also been taught pinyin, a romanized transcription system of Chinese characters, so will have had considerable exposure to alphabetic scripts.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 31170977], [grant number 31471074]; the Fundamental Research funds for the Central Universities; and the Research Funds of Renmin University of China [grant number 14NXLF12] to Qingfang Zhang.