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