Exploring the time course of semantic interference and associative priming in the picture–word interference task

Abstract

The picture–word interference (PWI) task is a widely used technique for exploring effects of semantic context on lexical access. In this task, printed words are superimposed over pictures to be named, with the timing of the interfering word relative to the picture systematically manipulated. Two experiments (N = 24 adults in each) explored the time course of effects of associates (e.g., CARROT superimposed on a picture of a rabbit) versus coordinates (e.g., CHIPMUNK superimposed on a picture of a rabbit) on naming latencies. Associates led to faster picture naming than did unrelated words, with facilitative effects occurring at stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs, in ms) ranging from –450 to 0. Coordinates led to slower naming latencies, with the interference effect restricted to SOAs of –150 and 0. The overlapping time course of associative priming and coordinate interference provides important constraints on models of lexical access in speech production.

Keywords:

• Associative priming
• Semantic interference
• Picture naming
• Lexical access

The work was supported by a City University of New York (CUNY) Collaborative Research Award to Sailor and Brooks and by National Institutes of Health (NIH) Score Grant S06 GM 008225. We thank Susan Russo and Kayon Nobles for their assistance with data collection and analysis. Portions of the data were presented at the 18th Annual Convention of the Association for Psychological Science (May 2006) and at the 47th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society (November 2006).