Adaptive lexical processing of semantic competitors extends to alternative names: Evidence from blocked-cyclic picture naming

Naming a picture (e.g., "duck") in the context of semantically related pictures (e.g., "eagle," "stork," "parrot") takes longer than naming it in the context of unrelated pictures (e.g., "knave," "toast," "atlas"). Adaptive models of word production attribute this semantic interference effect in blocked-cyclic naming (BCN) to an adaptive mechanism that makes competitor words, (e.g., the semantically related word "eagle" for the target word "duck") which are activated but not selected for production, less accessible for future retrieval. Results from a recent picture-word-interference study, however, suggested that alternative names (e.g., "bird" for "duck") might be exempt from this mechanism, challenging adaptive lexical processing as a general mechanism. We tested whether converging evidence is obtained in BCN. In Experiment 1, we embedded pictures responded to with alternative (category) names (e.g., "bird") into contexts composed of pictures responded to with specific (exemplar) names (e.g., "duck," "eagle," "stork," and "parrot"). If alternative names are exempt from adaptive lexical processing, interference in the homogeneous context should be found for specific name items but not for alternative name items. In contrast to this prediction, there was similar-sized interference for both types of items. In Experiment 2, we replaced the alternative name items with unrelated items. For these items, interference was largely diminished, ruling out that the effect found in Experiment 1 is a general set effect. Overall, our data suggest that alternative names are not special with respect to adaptive lexical processing.

Word frequency has similar effects in picture naming and gender decision: A failure to replicate Jescheniak and Levelt (1994)

Word frequency plays a key role in theories of lexical access, which assume that the word frequency effect (WFE, faster access to high-frequency than low-frequency words) occurs as a result of differences in the representation and processing of the words. In a seminal paper, Jescheniak and Levelt (1994) proposed that the WFE arises during the retrieval of word forms, rather than the retrieval of their syntactic representations (their lemmas) or articulatory commands. An important part of Jescheniak and Levelt's argument was that they found a stable WFE in a picture naming task, which requires complete lexical access, but not in a gender decision task, which only requires access to the words' lemmas and not their word forms. We report two attempts to replicate this pattern, one with new materials, and one with Jescheniak and Levelt's orginal pictures. In both studies we found a strong WFE when the pictures were shown for the first time, but much weaker effects on their second and third presentation. Importantly these patterns were seen in both the picture naming and the gender decision tasks, suggesting that either word frequency does not exclusively affect word form retrieval, or that the gender decision task does not exclusively tap lemma access.

Investigation of Mandarin Word Production in Children and Adults: Evidence from Phonological Priming with Non-words

Using a cross-modal picture-word interference (PWI) task, we examined phonological representations and encoding in Mandarin-speaking children and adults. Pictures of monosyllabic words were presented visually, with auditory primes presented before, concurrent with, or after the picture's appearance (SOA -200, -100, 0, +150). Primes were related to the targets in terms of Onset, Rhyme, Tone, Onset and Tone, Rhyme and Tone, or were unrelated. The rhymes of target words were counterbalanced between simple and complex structures to examine effects of rhyme complexity. Twenty Mandarin-speaking adults (aged 20;3 to 23;10), 20 school-age children (aged 9;1 to 10;11) and 20 preschoolers (aged 5;0 to 5;11) were asked to name the pictures as quickly as possible while ignoring the primes played over a headset. The results showed that adults exhibited consistent Onset and Onset-Tone priming effects across later SOAs, while the older children (9- to 10-year-olds) exhibited Onset, Rhyme, Onset-Tone and Rhyme-Tone priming effects across later SOAs. The younger children (5-year-olds), in contrast, exhibited Rhyme and Rhyme-Tone priming effects at the earliest SOA. For both groups of children, Rhyme and Rhyme-Tone priming effects were complexity-dependent. Our findings suggest that the phonological representations of Mandarin speakers develop from holistic units into those with an onset-based structure. Moreover, an incremental processing pattern at the sub-syllabic level is gradually developed around the age of 9 or 10, though susceptibility to holistic phonological similarity is retained to some degree.

Encoding category-level and context-specific phonological information at different stages: An EEG study of Mandarin third-tone sandhi word production

Pronunciation of words or morphemes may vary systematically in different phonological contexts, but it remains unclear how different levels of phonological information are encoded in speech production. In this study, we investigated the online planning process of Mandarin Tone 3 (T3) sandhi, a case of phonological alternation whereby a low-dipping tone (T3) changes to a Tone 2 (T2)-like rising tone when followed by another T3. To examine the time course of the encoding of the abstract category-level (underlying form) and context-specific phonological form (surface form) of T3, we conducted an electroencephalographic (EEG) study with a phonologically-primed picture naming task and examined the event-related potentials (ERPs) time-locked to the stimulus onset as well as speech response onset. The behavioral results showed that targets primed by T3 or T2 primes yielded shorter naming latencies than those primed by control primes. Importantly, the EEG data revealed that T3 primes elicited larger positive amplitude over broad frontocentral regions roughly in the 320-550 ms time window of stimulus-locked ERP and -500 to -400 ms time window of response-locked ERP, whereas T2 primes elicited larger negative amplitude over left frontocentral regions roughly in the -240 to -100 ms time window of response-locked ERP. These results indicate that the underlying and the surface form are encoded at different processing stages. The former presumably occurs in the earlier phonological encoding stage, while the latter probably occurs in the later phonetic encoding or motor preparation stage. The current study offers important implications for understanding the processing of phonological alternations and tonal encoding in Chinese word production.

EXPRESS: When words collide: Bayesian meta-analyses of distractor and target properties in the picture-word interference paradigm

In the picture-word interference paradigm, participants name pictures while ignoring a written or spoken distractor word. Naming times to the pictures are slowed down by the presence of the distractor word. The present study investigates in detail the impact of distractor and target word properties on picture naming times, building on the seminal study by Miozzo and Caramazza (2003) "When more is less: A counterintuitive effect of distractor frequency in the picture-word interference paradigm. Journal of Experimental Psychology. General." We report the results of several Bayesian meta-analyses, based on 26 datasets. These analyses provide estimates of effect sizes and their precision for several variables and their interactions. They show the reliability of the distractor frequency effect on picture naming latencies (latencies decrease as the frequency of the distractor increases) and demonstrate for the first time the impact of distractor length, with longer naming latencies for trials with longer distractors. Moreover, distractor frequency interacts with target word frequency to predict picture naming latencies. The methodological and theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.

Effects of delay, length, and frequency on onset RTs and word durations: Articulatory planning uses flexible units but cannot be prepared

There is debate regarding whether most articulatory planning occurs offline (rather than online) and whether the products of off-line processing are stored in a separate articulatory buffer until a large enough chunk is ready for production. This hypothesis predicts that delayed naming conditions should reduce not only onset RTs but also word durations because articulatory plans will be buffered and kept ready. We have tested this hypothesis with young control speakers, an aphasic speaker , and an age and education-matched speaker, using repetition, reading and picture-naming tasks. Contrary to the off-line hypothesis, delayed conditions strongly reduced onset RTs, but had no benefit for word durations. In fact, we found small effects in the opposite direction. Moreover, frequency and imageability affected word durations even in delayed conditions, consistent with articulatory processing continuing on-line. The same pattern of results was found in CS and in control participants, strengthening confidence in our results. There is debate regarding whether most articulatory planning occurs offline (rather than online) and whether the results of off-line processing are stored in a separate articulatory buffer until a large enough chunk is ready for production. This hypothesis predicts that delayed naming conditions should reduce not only onset RTs but also word durations because articulatory plans will be buffered and kept ready. We have tested young control speakers, an aphasic speaker, and an age and education matched speaker, using repetition, reading and picture naming tasks. Contrary to the off-line hypothesis, delayed conditions strongly reduced onset RTs, but had no benefit for word durations. In fact, we found small effects in the opposite direction. Moreover, frequency and imageability affected word durations even in delayed conditions, consistent with articulatory processing continuing on-line. The same pattern of results was found in CS and in control participants, strengthening confidence in our results.

The psychological reality of picture name agreement

Picture name agreement is commonly used as both a control variable and independent variable in studies of language production. It describes the proportion of participants who volunteer a picture's modal name in a norming study-a population-level descriptor-but researchers often assume that name agreement also indexes cognitive processes that occur within individuals. For instance, if norms show that 50% of speakers name a picture as couch, then each time a person tries to name the picture, they might have a 50% chance of selecting couch. An alternative, however, is that name agreement may simply reflect population-level sampling of more stable individual preferences (e.g., 50% of speakers prefer the name couch), continually developed through experience. One way to distinguish between these possibilities - and assess the psychological reality of name agreement - is simply to re-norm pictures with the same individuals. In Experiment 1, we therefore collected timed naming norms for a large set of line drawings from the same 25 native British English speakers twice, 1-2 weeks apart. Results show participants' name choices in Session 2 are jointly predicted by population-level name agreement, from our previous norms, and individuals' own productions in Session 1. Experiment 2 replicated this result and further showed that prior selections predicted Session 3 outcomes better than those in Session 2, in line with an incremental learning account. This is the first direct demonstration that picture name agreement has some psychological validity, but also reveals that it does not directly index within-participant lexical competition as previously assumed.

Comprehension exposures to words in sentence contexts impact spoken word production

Comprehension or production of isolated words and production of words embedded in sentence contexts facilitated later production in previous research. The present study examined the extent to which contextualized comprehension exposures would impact later production. Two repetition priming experiments were conducted with Spanish-English bilingual participants. In Experiment 1 (N = 112), all encoding stimuli were presented visually, and in Experiment 2 (N = 112), all encoding stimuli were presented auditorily. After reading/listening or translating isolated words or words embedded in sentences at encoding, pictures corresponding to each target word were named aloud. Repetition priming relative to new items was measured in RT and accuracy. Relative to isolated encoding, sentence encoding reduced RT priming but not accuracy priming. In reading/listening encoding conditions, both isolated and embedded words elicited accuracy priming in picture naming, but only isolated words elicited RT priming. In translation encoding conditions, repetition priming effects in RT (but not accuracy) were stronger for lower-frequency words and with lower proficiency in the picture-naming response language. RT priming was strongest when the translation response at encoding was produced in the same language as final picture naming. In contrast, accuracy priming was strongest when the translation stimulus at encoding was comprehended in the same language as final picture naming. Thus, comprehension at encoding increased the rate of successful retrieval, whereas production at encoding speeded later production. Practice of comprehension may serve to gradually move less well-learned words from receptive to productive vocabulary.

Interference effects of phonological similarity in word production arise from competitive incremental learning

In the blocked cyclic naming task, native Mandarin speakers named pictures with disyllabic names in small sets and blocks, with the critical manipulation whether pictures within a block shared an atonal syllable or not. We found the expected facilitation when the overlapping portion of responses was in word-initial position, but we also replicated a recent observation that with 'inconsistent' overlap (shared syllables could be either in first or second word position), form overlap causes interference. Crucially, interference also occurred when phonologically unrelated filler trials or trials which required a nonlinguistic response were interleaved with the critical pictures. The same pattern was found with written responses and orthographic radical overlap. The results are best explained via "competitive incremental learning" between lexical and phonological representations. A computer simulation confirms that this principle generates interference, and that the result is unaffected by filler trials. We conclude that incremental learning constitutes a universal principle in the mapping from semantics to phonology in language production.

Cumulative semantic cost without successful naming

Accessing semantic information has negative consequences for successive recovering attempts of similar information. For instance, in the course of picture-naming tasks, the time required to name an object is determined by the total number of items from the same category that have already been named; naming latencies increase proportionally to the total number of semantically related words named previously. This phenomenon is called cumulative semantic cost (or interference). Two picture-naming experiments with children (4–11 years old, 229 participants) investigate whether having successfully named the previous within-category items is a necessary condition for the cumulative semantic cost to appear. We anticipated that younger children would have a larger rate of nonresponses compared with older children, reflecting the fact that younger children have not yet consolidated many lexical representations. Our results confirmed this prediction. Critically, we also observed that cumulative semantic cost was independent of having successfully retrieved previous within-category lexical items. Furthermore, picture trials for which the previous within-category item elicited a nonresponse showed the same amount of cost as those picture trials for which the previous within-category item elicited a correct naming event. Our findings indicate that it is the attempt to retrieve a lexical unit, and not the successful retrieval of a specific lexical unit, that causes semantic cost in picture naming. This cost can be explained by a mechanism of weakening the semantic-to-lexical mappings of semantic coordinate words. The findings are also discussed in the context of retrieval-induced forgetting effects in memory recall research.

Modeling the distributional dynamics of attention and semantic interference in word production

In recent years, it has become clear that attention plays an important role in spoken word production. Some of this evidence comes from distributional analyses of reaction time (RT) in regular picture naming and picture-word interference. Yet we lack a mechanistic account of how the properties of RT distributions come to reflect attentional processes and how these processes may in turn modulate the amount of conflict between lexical representations. Here, we present a computational account according to which attentional lapses allow for existing conflict to build up unsupervised on a subset of trials, thus modulating the shape of the resulting RT distribution. Our process model resolves discrepancies between outcomes of previous studies on semantic interference. Moreover, the model's predictions were confirmed in a new experiment where participants' motivation to remain attentive determined the size and distributional locus of semantic interference in picture naming. We conclude that process modeling of RT distributions importantly improves our understanding of the interplay between attention and conflict in word production. Our model thus provides a framework for interpreting distributional analyses of RT data in picture naming tasks.

Age-Specific Effects of Lexical-Semantic Networks on Word Production

The lexical-semantic organization of the mental lexicon is bound to change across the lifespan. Nevertheless, the effects of lexical-semantic factors on word processing are usually based on studies enrolling young adult cohorts. The current study aims to investigate to what extent age-specific semantic organization predicts performance in referential word production over the lifespan, from school-age children to older adults. In Study 1, we conducted a free semantic association task with participants from six age-groups (ranging from 10 to 80 years old) to compute measures that capture age-specific properties of the mental lexicon across the lifespan. These measures relate to lifespan changes in the Available Richness of the mental lexicon and in the lexical-semantic Network Prototypicality of concrete words. In Study 2, we used the collected data to predict performance in a picture-naming task on a new group of participants within the same age-groups as for Study 1. The results show that age-specific semantic Available Richness and Network Prototypicality affect word production speed while the semantic variables collected only in young adults do not. A richer and more prototypical semantic network across subjects from a given age-group is associated with faster word production speed. The current results indicate that age-specific semantic organization is crucial to predict lexical-semantic behaviors across the lifespan. Similarly, these results also provide cues to the understanding of the lexical-semantic properties of the mental lexicon and to lexical selection in referential tasks.

Semantic interference is not modality specific: Evidence from sound naming with distractor pictures

In three experiments, participants named environmental sounds (e.g., the bleating of a sheep by producing the word "sheep") in the presence of distractor pictures. In Experiment 1, we observed faster responses in sound naming with congruent pictures (e.g., sheep; congruency facilitation) and slower responses with semantically related pictures (e.g., donkey; semantic interference), each compared with unrelated pictures (e.g., violin). In Experiments 2 and 3, we replicated these effects and used a psychological refractory period approach (combining an arrow decision or letter rotation task as Task 1 with sound naming as Task 2) to investigate the locus of the effects. Congruency facilitation was underadditive with dual-task interference suggesting that it arises, in part, during pre-central processing stages in sound naming (i.e., sound identification). In contrast, semantic interference was additive with dual-task interference suggesting that it arises during central (or post-central) processing stages in sound naming (i.e., response selection or later processes). These results demonstrate the feasibility of sound naming tasks for chronometric investigations of word production. Furthermore, they highlight that semantic interference is not restricted to the use of target pictures and distractor words but can be observed with quite different target-distractor configurations. The experiments support the view that congruency facilitation and semantic interference reflect some general cognitive mechanism involved in word production. These results are discussed in the context of the debate about semantic-lexical selection mechanisms in word production.

Uncinate fasciculus and word selection processing in Parkinson's disease

We explored with Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) technique whether the ability to select words among competitive alternatives during word production is related to the integrity of the left uncinate fasciculus (UF) in Parkinson's disease (PD). Nineteen PD patients (10 right-sided and 9 left-sided) and 17 matched healthy controls (HC) took part in the study. Participants were asked to derive nouns from verbs (reading from to read) or to generate verbs from nouns (to build from building). Noun and verb production, in this task, differ in the number of lexical entries among which the response is selected, as the noun must be selected from a larger number of alternatives compared to the verb, and thus is more demanding of processing resources. DTI evaluation was obtained for each subject. Fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD) maps were derived from DTI and median FA and MD values were computed within the left and right UF. Then, FA and MD of the left and right UF were correlated with noun and verb production. Both the left and right UF-FA correlated with the global (noun + verb) production and noun production in the whole PD group. In right-sided PD, correlations were found with the contralateral UF-FA; in left-sided PD the correlations emerged with both the left and right UF-FA. The most difficult task, noun production, significantly correlated with the right UF-FA in left-sided PD. The left UF is involved in word selection processes, and the right UF intervenes when the selection is particularly demanding of attentional resources.

Saying thirteen instead of forty-two but saying lale instead of tale: is number production special?

Stimulus Type Effect on Phonological and Semantic errors (STEPS) occurs when a person, following brain damage, produces phonemic errors with non-number words (e.g., lale for tale), but produces semantic errors with number words (e.g., thirteen for forty-two). Despite the relative frequency of this phenomenon, it has received little scholarly attention thus far. To explain STEPS, the Building Blocks hypothesis has been proposed (Cohen, Verstichel, & Dehaene, 1997; Dotan & Friedmann, 2015): the phonological output buffer includes single phonemes as the units of speech production for words, whereas entire number words are the building blocks of multi-digit production. Impairment in the phonological output buffer results in the incorrect selection of these units, leading to phonemic errors when producing non-number words, but semantic errors when producing numbers. In the present study we consider two patients, one with a deficit in the phonological output buffer, and one with a deficit in the phonological input buffer but with a preserved phonological output buffer. Number word and non-number word repetition, naming, and reading abilities were assessed. As expected, STEPS was found in the patient with deficits in the phonological output buffer in the three tasks; more notably, evidence of STEPS was also found for the patient with deficits in the phonological input buffer in the repetition task. Since our results cannot be fully explained by the Building Blocks hypothesis in its present form, we discuss the suitability of this hypothesis for the current data, and consider alternative accounts of STEPS.

Electrocorticography reveals spatiotemporal neuronal activation patterns of verbal fluency in patients with epilepsy

Verbal fluency is commonly used to evaluate cognitive dysfunction in a variety of neuropsychiatric diseases, yet the neurobiology underlying performance of this task is incompletely understood. Electrocorticography (ECoG) provides a unique opportunity to investigate temporal activation patterns during cognitive tasks with high spatial and temporal precision. We used ECoG to study high gamma activity (HGA) patterns in patients undergoing presurgical evaluation for intractable epilepsy as they completed an overt, free-recall verbal fluency task. We examined regions demonstrating changes in HGA during specific timeframes relative to speech onset. Early pre-speech high gamma activity was present in left frontal regions during letter fluency and in bifrontal regions during category fluency. During timeframes typically associated with word planning, a distributed network was engaged including left inferior frontal, orbitofrontal and posterior temporal regions. Peri-Rolandic activation was observed during speech onset, and there was post-speech activation in the bilateral posterior superior temporal regions. Based on these observations in the context of prior studies, we propose a model of neocortical activity patterns underlying verbal fluency.

Capturing multiple interaction effects in L1 and L2 object-naming reaction times in healthy bilinguals: a mixed-effects multiple regression analysis

Background

It is difficult to set up a balanced higher-order full-factorial experiment that can capture multiple intricate interactions between cognitive and psycholinguistic factors underlying bilingual speech production. To capture interactions more fully in one study, we analyzed object-naming reaction times (RTs) by using mixed-effects multiple regression.

Methods

Ten healthy bilinguals (median age: 23 years, seven females) were asked to name 131 colored pictures of common objects in each of their languages. RTs were analyzed based on language status, proficiency, word choice, word frequency, word duration, initial phoneme, time series, and participant’s gender.

Results

Among five significant interactions, new findings include a facilitating effect of a cross-language shared initial phoneme (mean RT for shared phoneme: 974 ms vs. mean RT for different phoneme: 1020 ms), which profited males less (mean profit: 10 ms) than females (mean profit: 47 ms).

Conclusions

Our data support language-independent phonological activation and a gender difference in inhibitory cognitive language control. Single word production process in healthy adult bilinguals is affected by interactions among cognitive, phonological, and semantic factors.

Neural dynamics of the production of newly acquired words relative to well-known words

An adult continues acquiring new lexical entries in everyday life. Brain networks and processes at play when producing newly learnt words might be similar to well-known words, yet some processes are bound to be slower. Here, we compared the neural dynamics of producing newly acquired words with those of well-known frequent words, both qualitatively and quantitatively, using event-related potentials (ERPs) associated to high-density microstate analyses. ERPs revealed several temporal windows with differences in waveform amplitudes, which correspond to enhanced duration of similar microstates for newly acquired words compared to well-known words. The time-periods of these ERP modulations converged to suggest that both lexical processes and word form encoding are slowed down for words that have been learned recently, but that the same brain processes are implemented as for well-known words.

Large-scale plurimodal networks common to listening to, producing and reading word lists: an fMRI study combining task-induced activation and intrinsic connectivity in 144 right-handers

We aimed at identifying plurimodal large-scale networks for producing, listening to and reading word lists based on the combined analyses of task-induced activation and resting-state intrinsic connectivity in 144 healthy right-handers. In the first step, we identified the regions in each hemisphere showing joint activation and joint asymmetry during the three tasks. In the left hemisphere, 14 homotopic regions of interest (hROIs) located in the left Rolandic sulcus, precentral gyrus, cingulate gyrus, cuneus and inferior supramarginal gyrus (SMG) met this criterion, and 7 hROIs located in the right hemisphere were located in the preSMA, medial superior frontal gyrus, precuneus and superior temporal sulcus (STS). In a second step, we calculated the BOLD temporal correlations across these 21 hROIs at rest and conducted a hierarchical clustering analysis to unravel their network organization. Two networks were identified, including the WORD-LIST_CORE network that aggregated 14 motor, premotor and phonemic areas in the left hemisphere plus the right STS that corresponded to the posterior human voice area (pHVA). The present results revealed that word-list processing is based on left articulatory and storage areas supporting the action-perception cycle common not only to production and listening but also to reading. The inclusion of the right pHVA acting as a prosodic integrative area highlights the importance of prosody in the three modalities and reveals an intertwining across hemispheres between prosodic (pHVA) and phonemic (left SMG) processing. These results are consistent with the motor theory of speech postulating that articulatory gestures are the central motor units on which word perception, production, and reading develop and act together.

Modifying a language screening tool for three-year-old children identified severe language disorders six months earlier

AIM

We examined if routine Swedish language screening for developmental language disorder (DLD) carried out at three years of age could be performed as effectively six months earlier.

METHODS

This study observed 105 monolingual Swedish-speaking children (53% boys) aged 29-31 months at three Swedish child health centres. We compared their ability to combine three words, as per the existing protocol, and two words. They also underwent a comprehension task. Speech and language pathologists clinically assessed the children for DLD and their results were compared with the nurse-led screening.

RESULTS

The results for the three-word and two-word criterion were the following: sensitivity (100% versus 91%) specificity (81% versus 91%), positive predictive (38% versus 56%) and negative predictive value (100% versus 99%). The three-word criterion identified 29 children with possible DLD, including 11 cases later confirmed, and the two-word criterion identified 18 possible cases, including 10 confirmed cases. DLD was overrepresented in the 10% of children who did not cooperate with the nurse-led screening.

CONCLUSION

Changing the required word combinations from three to two words worked well. The three-word test identified one extra confirmed case, but resulted in 10 more false positives. Lack of cooperation during screening constituted an increased risk for DLD.

Slow naming of pictures facilitates memory for their names

Speakers remember their own utterances better than those of their interlocutors, suggesting that language production is beneficial to memory. This may be partly explained by a generation effect: The act of generating a word is known to lead to a memory advantage (Slamecka & Graf, 1978). In earlier work, we showed a generation effect for recognition of images (Zormpa, Brehm, Hoedemaker, & Meyer, 2019). Here, we tested whether the recognition of their names would also benefit from name generation. Testing whether picture naming improves memory for words was our primary aim, as it serves to clarify whether the representations affected by generation are visual or conceptual/lexical. A secondary aim was to assess the influence of processing time on memory. Fifty-one participants named pictures in three conditions: after hearing the picture name (identity condition), backward speech, or an unrelated word. A day later, recognition memory was tested in a yes/no task. Memory in the backward speech and unrelated conditions, which required generation, was superior to memory in the identity condition, which did not require generation. The time taken by participants for naming was a good predictor of memory, such that words that took longer to be retrieved were remembered better. Importantly, that was the case only when generation was required: In the no-generation (identity) condition, processing time was not related to recognition memory performance. This work has shown that generation affects conceptual/lexical representations, making an important contribution to the understanding of the relationship between memory and language.

Timed written picture naming in 14 European languages

We describe the Multilanguage Written Picture Naming Dataset. This gives trial-level data and time and agreement norms for written naming of the 260 pictures of everyday objects that compose the colorized Snodgrass and Vanderwart picture set (Rossion & Pourtois in Perception, 33, 217–236, 2004). Adult participants gave keyboarded responses in their first language under controlled experimental conditions (N = 1,274, with subsamples responding in Bulgarian, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Icelandic, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish). We measured the time to initiate a response (RT) and interkeypress intervals, and calculated measures of name and spelling agreement. There was a tendency across all languages for quicker RTs to pictures with higher familiarity, image agreement, and name frequency, and with higher name agreement. Effects of spelling agreement and effects on output rates after writing onset were present in some, but not all, languages. Written naming therefore shows name retrieval effects that are similar to those found in speech, but our findings suggest the need for cross-language comparisons as we seek to understand the orthographic retrieval and/or assembly processes that are specific to written output.

Is adaptive control in language production mediated by learning?

Recent work using the Picture Word Interference (PWI) paradigm has revealed that language production, similar to non-verbal tasks, shows a robust Congruency Sequence Effect (CSE), defined as a decreased congruency effect following incongruent trials. Although CSE is considered an index of adaptive control, its mechanism is debated. In two experiments, we tested the predictions of a learning model of adaptive control in production, using a task-switching paradigm fully balanced to evaluate CSE on a PWI trial as a function of the congruency of a 2-back PWI trial (within-task CSE), as well as a 1-back trial belonging to a different task (cross-task CSE). The second task was a visuospatial task with congruent and incongruent trials in Experiment 1, and a self-paced reading task with ambiguous and unambiguous sentences in Experiment 2 that imposed a gap between the two PWI trials twice as long of that in Experiment 1. A learning model posits that CSE is the result of changes to the connection weights between task-specific representations and a control center, which leads to two predictions in our paradigm: (a) a robust within-task CSE unaffected by the intervening trial and the gap duration, and (b) an absent or reversed cross-task CSE. These predictions were contrasted with two versions of an activation model of CSE. In accord with the predictions of the learning model, we found robust within-task CSE in PWI in both Experiments with a comparable effect size. Similarly, evidence of within-task CSE was also found in the visuospatial and sentence reading tasks. On the other hand, examination of cross-task CSE from PWI to the other tasks and vice versa revealed either absent or reversed CSE. Collectively, these results support a learning model of adaptive control in language production.

Overcoming duality: the fused bousfieldian function for modeling word production in verbal fluency tasks

Word production is generally assumed to occur as a function of a broadly interconnected language system. In terms of verbal fluency tasks, word production dynamics can be assessed by analyzing respective time courses via curve fitting. Here, a new generalized fitting function is presented by merging the two dichotomous classical Bousfieldian functions into one overarching power function with an adjustable shape parameter. When applied to empirical data from verbal fluency tasks, the error of approximation was significantly reduced while also fulfilling the Bayesian information criterion, suggesting a superior overall application value. Moreover, the approach identified a previously unknown logarithmic time course, providing further evidence of an underlying lexical network structure. In view of theories on lexical access, the corresponding modeling differentiates task-immanent lexical suppression from automatic lexical coactivation. In conclusion, our approach indicates that process dynamics result from an increasing cognitive effort to suppress automatic network functions.

Evaluating the roles of left middle frontal gyrus in word production using electrocorticography

To assess the specific roles of left middle frontal gyrus (LMFG) in word production, electrocorticography signals were recorded from an epilepsy patient when he participated in language tasks. We found three sites of LMFG showed high-gamma perturbations with distinct patterns across tasks; and neural activities elicited in the same tasks shared similar patterns, while those elicited by stimuli leading to the same articulations did not. These findings confirmed that the LMFG takes active parts in word production, and suggested that it may serve as a temporal perceptual information storage space, supporting the hierarchical state feedback control model of word production.

The interrelatedness between infants' communicative gestures and lexicon size: A longitudinal study

Research has shown a close relationship between gestures and language development. In this study, we investigate the cross-lagged relationships between different types of gestures and two lexicon dimensions: number of words produced and comprehended. Information about gestures and lexical development was collected from 48 typically developing infants when these were aged 0;9, 1;0 and 1;3. The European Portuguese version of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory: Words and Gestures (PT CDI:WG) was used. The results indicated that the total number of actions and gestures and the number of early gestures produced at 0;9 and at 1;0 year predicted the number of words comprehended three months later. Actions and gestures' predictive power of the number of words produced was limited to the 0;9-1;0 year interval. The opposite relationship was not found: word comprehension and production did not predict action and gestures three months later. These results highlight the importance of non-verbal communicative behavior in language development.

Lexical factors in conceptual processes: The relationship between semantic representations and their corresponding phonological and orthographic lexical forms

To examine phonological and orthographic effects on semantic processing, the present study utilized a semantic task with nonverbal stimuli. In Experiment 1, Hebrew speakers were asked to decide whether 2 pictorial targets are semantically related or not. In Experiment 2, Hebrew speakers and non-Hebrew speakers were asked to rate the semantic relatedness of the same targets on a 5-point scale. Experiment 3 was identical to the first experiment except that the 2 pictures were presented simultaneously rather than sequentially. In all experiments, we compared responses to semantically unrelated pairs in 2 conditions: In the ambiguous condition, each pair represented 2 distinct meanings of an ambiguous Hebrew word. In the unambiguous condition, the first picture was replaced with an unambiguous control. To disentangle phonological and orthographic effects, three types of Hebrew ambiguous words were used: homonyms, homophones, and homographs. Ambiguous pairs were more difficult to be judged as semantically unrelated in comparison to their unambiguous controls. Moreover, while non-Hebrew speakers did not distinguish between the 2 lexical conditions, Hebrew speakers rated ambiguous pairs as significantly more related than their unambiguous controls. Importantly, in general, the ambiguity effect was stronger for homonyms, where both lexical forms are shared, than for either homophones or homographs, which are only phonologically or orthographically related. Thus, consistent with interactive "triangle" models, the results suggest that (a) conceptual-semantic representations automatically activate both their corresponding phonological and orthographic lexical forms, and (b) these lexical forms, once activated, may in turn affect semantic-conceptual processes via feedback connections.

Neural dynamics of object noun, action verb and action noun production in picture naming

The verb/noun dissociation has often involved the semantic/grammatical confound. We conducted two event-related potentials (ERPs) studies with the aim of minimizing this confound. In Experiment 1 participants named pictures depicting actions, with verbs or nouns and pictures depicting objects with nouns. In Experiment 2, participants named objects (nouns) or actions (verbs/nouns) from the same set of action pictures. Compatible with lexical-semantic processes, semantic category modulated waveform amplitudes and topographic patterns between 250 and 380 ms after picture-onset in Experiment 1. No such effects were observed in Experiment 2. No effects were found for grammatical class in both experiments suggesting that grammatical information is not mandatorily activated during lexical-semantic processes. Given the absence of dissociation when same pictures were used the results are described as feed-forward effects from visual to semantic processing, indicating differential neural networks for lexical selection of action and object words from their corresponding visual referents.

Serial order in word form retrieval: New insights from the auditory picture-word interference task

One important theoretical question about word production concerns whether the phonemes of a word are retrieved in parallel or in sequential order. To address this question, Meyer and Schriefers (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 17:1146-1160, 1991) used an auditory picture-word interference task and manipulated the position of the phonemes shared between a distractor word and a target picture. They found that begin-related distractors (e.g., boat-bone) facilitated naming times when they were presented within 150 ms before or after the picture, whereas end-related distractors (e.g., cone-bone) were effective only if presented within 150 ms after the picture. This suggested that the word's end phonemes were activated later than the beginning ones. However, it remained unclear whether these effects genuinely reflected facilitation at the level of phonological retrieval. In this study, we examined later distractor presentation onsets, so that the distractors had little opportunity to influence earlier, lexical selection processes. At the latest onset tested, end-related-but not begin-related-distractors significantly facilitated naming. We concluded that late-presented distractors do indeed influence phonological encoding, and that their asymmetric effects support a sequential model of phoneme retrieval.

Neuroimaging the short- and long-term effects of repeated picture naming in healthy older adults

Repeated attempts to name pictures can improve subsequent naming for aphasic individuals with anomia, however, the neurocognitive mechanisms responsible for such improvements are unknown. This study investigated repeated picture naming in healthy older adults over a period of minutes (short-term) after one repetition and a period of days (long-term) after multiple repetitions. Compared to unprimed pictures, both repeated conditions showed faster naming latencies with the fastest latencies evident for the short-term condition. Neuroimaging results identified repetition suppression effects across three left inferior frontal gyrus regions of interest: for both the short- and long-term conditions in the pars orbitalis, and for long-term items in the pars triangularis and pars opercularis regions. The whole brain analysis also showed a repetition suppression effect in bilateral pars triangularis regions for the long-term condition. These findings within the inferior frontal gyrus suggest that effects of repeated naming may be driven by a mapping mechanism across multiple levels of representation, possibly reflecting different levels of learning, and lend support to the idea that processing may be hierarchically organised in the left inferior frontal gyrus. The whole brain analysis also revealed repetition suppression for the long-term condition within the posterior portion of bilateral inferior temporal gyri, which may reflect attenuation of integration processes within this region following the learning of task-relevant information.

On the temporal dynamics of sign production: An ERP study in Catalan Sign Language (LSC)

This study investigates the temporal dynamics of sign production and how particular aspects of the signed modality influence the early stages of lexical access. To that end, we explored the electrophysiological correlates associated to sign frequency and iconicity in a picture signing task in a group of bimodal bilinguals. Moreover, a subset of the same participants was tested in the same task but naming the pictures instead. Our results revealed that both frequency and iconicity influenced lexical access in sign production. At the ERP level, iconicity effects originated very early in the course of signing (while absent in the spoken modality), suggesting a stronger activation of the semantic properties for iconic signs. Moreover, frequency effects were modulated by iconicity, suggesting that lexical access in signed language is determined by the iconic properties of the signs. These results support the idea that lexical access is sensitive to the same phenomena in word and sign production, but its time-course is modulated by particular aspects of the modality in which a lexical item will be finally articulated.

On the nature of sonority in spoken word production: evidence from neuropsychology

The concept of sonority - that speech sounds can be placed along a universal sonority scale that affects syllable structure - has proved valuable in accounting for a wide spectrum of linguistic phenomena and psycholinguistic findings. Yet, despite the success of this concept in specifying principles governing sound structure, several questions remain about sonority. One issue that needs clarification concerns its locus in the processes involved in spoken language production, and specifically whether sonority affects the computation of abstract word form representations (phonology), the encoding of context-specific features (phonetics), or both of these processes. This issue was examined in the present study investigating two brain-damaged individuals with impairment arising primarily from deficits affecting phonological and phonetic processes, respectively. Clear effects of sonority on production accuracy were observed in both individuals testing word onsets and codas in word production. These findings indicate that the underlying principles governing sound structure that are captured by the notion of sonority play a role at both phonological and phonetic levels of processing. Furthermore, aspects of the errors recorded from our participants revealed features of syllabic structure proposed under current phonological theories (e.g., articulatory phonology).