The relationship between semantic-syntactic and phonological levels in speaking was investigated using a picture naming procedure with simultaneously presented visual or auditory distractor words. Previous results with auditory distractors have been used to support the independent stage model (e.g., H. Schriefers, A. S. Meyer, & W. J. M. Levelt, 1990) whereas results with visual distractors have been used to support an interactive view (e.g., P. A. Starreveld & W. La Heij, 1996b). Experiment 1 demonstrated that with auditory distractors semantic effects preceded phonological effects whereas the reverse pattern held for visual distractors. Experiment 2 indicated that the results for visual distractors followed the auditory pattern when distractor presentation time was limited. Experiment 3 demonstrated an interaction between phonological and semantic relatedness of distractors for auditory presentation, supporting an interactive account of lexical access in speaking.

Priming for semantically related concepts was investigated using a lexical decision task designed to reveal automatic semantic priming. Two experiments provided further evidence that priming in a single presentation lexical decision task (McNamara & Altarriba, 1988) derives from automatic processes. Mediated priming, but no inhibition or backward priming was found in this type of lexical decision task. Experiments 3 and 4 demonstrated that automatic priming was found only for associated word pairs, as determined by word association norms, and not for word pairs that are semantically related but not associated. It is argued that automatic priming in the lexical decision task occurs at a lexical level not at a semantic level.

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SUMMARYEarly work in perceptual and conceptual categorization assumed that categories had criterial features and that category membership could be determined by logical rules for the combination of features. More recent theories have assumed that categories have an ill-defined structure and have proposed probabilistic or global similarity models for the verification of category membership.In the experiments reported here, several models of categorization were compared, using one set of categories having criterial features and another set having an illdefined structure. Schematic faces were used as exemplars in both cases. Because many models depend on distance in a multidimensional space for their predictions, in Experiment 1 a multidimensional scaling study was performed using the faces of both sets as stimuli.In Experiment 2, subjects learned the category membership of faces for the categories having criterial features. After learning, reaction times for category verification and typicality judgments were obtained. Subjects also judged the similarity of pairs of faces. Since these categories had characteristic as well as defining features, it was possible to test the predictions of the feature comparison model (Smith et al.), which asserts that reaction times and typicalities are affected by characteristic features. Only weak support for this model was obtained. Instead, it appeared that subjects developed logical rules for the classification effaces. A characteristic feature affected reaction times only when it was part of the rule system devised by the subject.The procedure for Experiment 3 was like that for Experiment 2, but with ill-defined rather than well-defined categories. The obtained reaction times had high correlations with some of the models for ill-defined categories. However, subjects' performance could best be described as one'of feature testing based on a logical rule system for classification.These experiments indicate that whether or not categories have criterial features, subjects attempt to develop a set of feature tests that allow for exemplar classification. Previous evidence supporting probabilistic or similarity models may be interpreted as resulting from subjects' use of the most efficient rules for classification and the averaging of responses for subjects using different sets of rules.Human beings make sense of variability superordinate lexical categories (furniture, in the perceptual world by classifying similar clothing) have been used. The assumption objects into the same category. Psychologi-has often been made either explicitly or cal research has long been directed toward implicitly that the same structural and prodetermining the structure of the similarity cessing principles hold in both perceptual and relations among members of a class or conceptual realms and that, therefore, one category and the process by which exem-can learn about conceptual categorization plars are classified. Different class or cate-by studying in the laboratory the classifigory types ranging in complex...

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