The picture-word interference paradigm: conceptual effects in the production of verbs

In recent years, experimental research on language production has started to make increasing use of the so-called picture-word interference paradigm to explore lexical retrieval processes. While providing useful information on the production of nouns, the paradigm has not led, so far, to comparable results with respect to the production of verbs. The paper presents an experiment and provides a discussion aiming at clarifying some of the variables that affect verb production and render semantic interference effects difficult to observe.