SEMANTIC INTERFERENCE EFFECTS ON NAMING USING A POSTCUE PROCEDURE - TAPPING THE LINKS BETWEEN SEMANTICS AND PHONOLOGY WITH PICTURES AND WORDS

Five experiments are reported in which a new technique for assessing t he processes involved in mapping semantic representations onto name in formation in simple naming tasks was used. This technique, the postcue naming procedure, requires participants to name 1 of 2 potential targ et stimuli after they receive a relevant selection cue. Naming perform ance is slowed when the 2 potential targets are semantically related, relative to when they are unrelated. Effects on picture and word targe ts are of equal magnitude, providing these 2 types of stimulus are int ermingled in the experiment. When words are presented alone, semantic interference is abolished (although evidence for lexical processing of words can be demonstrated). The effect on picture naming is also elim inated when the interfering stimulus has to be categorized rather than named. These results suggest that the locus of the interference is in the processes mapping semantic information onto names. These processe s seem to be shared by pictures and words when the semantic processing of words is induced.