Let's Not Miss the Forest for the Trees: A Reply to Montefinese and Vinson's (2015) Commentary on Vieth et al. (2014)

In Vieth et al. (2014a), we conducted three experiments to examine semantic relatedness effects in the picture-word interference (PWI) paradigm. According to the lexical selection by competition account of spoken word production, feature overlap between the target picture and related distractor word induces semantic interference. However, this account has been challenged by studies demonstrating semantic facilitation in the PWI paradigm (e., we investigated whether some reports of semantic facilitation in PWI might be due to the influence of distinctive features, i.e., features that quickly distinguish a concept from other similar concepts, as previous studies had not controlled for this variable (e. In Experiment 3, we observed semantic interference for distractor words denoting a non-distinctive feature (e.g., knee) visible in the target picture (e.g., CAMEL), but no interference for distractor words denoting a distinctive feature (e.g., hump) compared to matched sets of distractors denoting unrelated features. We argued this finding is consistent with lexical selection by competition accounts, and might entail additional spread of activation to related concepts that share the non-distinctive feature via the appropriate category node (e.g., Animals). In their commentary, Montefinese and Vinson (2015) arrive at the opposite conclusion, arguing that feature distinctiveness does not affect the degree of interference in PWI. Here, we respond to each of their objections. Montefinese and Vinson's (2015) principal objection concerned the statistical significance tests of the higher order interaction between distractor relatedness, distinctiveness and stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA), and partial interaction of relatedness and distinctiveness at the −150 ms SOA. Our response to this objection revisits longstanding debates in experimental psychology about the use of arbitrary alpha levels to justify dichotomous decisions and failure to consider the size of effects (e. (2014a), the p-values for the higher-order interaction by participants and by items were 0.06 and 0.078, respectively, and the interaction was a medium sized effect (partial η 2 = 0.10 and 0.11, respectively; e.g., Vacha-Haase and Thompson, 2004). Montefinese and Vinson misrepresent the two-way interaction as being " far from significant. " In fact, this partial interaction was statistically significant in the items analysis and a larger effect (p = 0.023; partial η 2 = 0.21). Surprisingly, Montefinese and Vinson chose to cite Nieuwenhuis et al. (2011) to support their criticism of the statistical significance tests of the interactions, yet those authors wrote: " as famously noted by Rosnow and Rosenthal, 'surely, God loves the 0.06 nearly as much as …