The Effect of Lexical Cohort Size Is Independent of Semantic Context Effects in a Picture–Word Interference Task: A Combined ERP and sLORETA Study

Abstract

Lexical cohort size is known to play an important role in the magnitude of semantic interference during picture naming in continuous and blocking naming tasks. Nevertheless, whether and how lexical cohort size influences semantic context effects in a picture-word interference (PWI) task remains unclear. To address this issue, participants were required to name pictures, which were paired with both semantically related and unrelated distractors, from both large and small lexical cohorts while electroencephalogram (EEG) signals were recorded. Behavior results showed a semantic interference effect but no interaction between semantic relatedness and lexical cohort size in naming latencies. ERPs and correlation analyses revealed that semantic interference effects occurred at the lexical level in the time windows of 200-400 and 400-600 ms, and lexical cohort size effects occurred at the conceptual level in the time window of 100-200 ms and at the lexical level in the time windows of 200-400 ms. Critically, no interaction between two variables was found, reflecting that lexical cohort size is independent of semantic interference for categorical relations in the PWI. sLORETA results found stronger brain activations for large lexical cohorts at the left superior temporal gyrus and inferior frontal gyrus in the time interval of 250-300 ms, which may relate to lexical selection and self-monitoring. Our findings provide evidence for the swinging lexical network rather than the response exclusion hypothesis in spoken production.

Word frequency effect in written production: Evidence from ERPs and neural oscillations

“…A number of these studies have found a context effect starting approximately at 175–250 ms after stimulus onset (Aristei et al., 2011; Costa et al., 2009; Janssen et al., 2014; Maess et al., 2002; Piai et al., 2012; Wang et al., 2018). Even though some of the studies have observed context effects starting at around 100 ms after picture onset (Dell'Acqua et al., 2010; Ouyang et al., 2019; Rose & Abdel Rahman, 2017), researchers have tended to explain them as reflecting conceptually driven semantic priming. Taken together, it is unlikely that the WF effect in the 98–160 ms time window reflects lexical‐semantic retrieval.…”

Word Distance Affects Subjective Temporal Distance

“…In Experiment 2, the pair of prime and target words in the close condition had a phonological similarity (their first characters had the same pronunciation) but no other similarity, e.g., 梳子(“comb”,/shu1zi5/)—书展(“book fair”,/shu1zhan3/). Taxonomic relation ( Ouyang et al, 2019 ; Rose et al, 2019 ) and phonological overlapping ( Zhou and Marslen-Wilson, 2000 ; Zhu et al, 2015 ) were abundantly used to define semantic and phonological similarities, respectively, in language studies. In both experiments, the pair of prime and target words had no similarity, e.g., 樱桃—老虎(“tiger”,/lao3hu3/), and 梳子—海豚(“dolphin”,/hai3tun2/).…”