When aphasic individuals name pictures in a blocked-cyclic naming paradigm, they produce more semantic and omission errors when the repeatedly named items come from a single semantic category, relative to when the items are from different categories, an effect known as cumulative semantic interference. This effect is magnified in Broca’s aphasics and increases as patients repeatedly cycle throu...

Speaking is an action that requires control, for example, to prevent interference from distracting or competing information present in the speaker's environment. Control over task performance is thought to depend on the lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC). However, the neuroimaging literature does not show a consistent relation between left PFC and interference control in word production. Here, we ...

To explain latency effects in picture-word interference tasks (Glaser & Düngelhoff, 1984, cf. Stroop, 1935), cognitive models need to account for both interference and SOA effects. As opposed to most ACT-R models, which model the time course in a ballistic manner, the RACE model (Retrieval by ACcumulating Evidence) presented here accounts for semantic interference during the retrieval interval....

The aim of this study is to explore the nature of the semantic effects in the picture–word interference paradigm. In particular, we focused on the (a) identity effect, (b) semantic interference effect, (c) semantic facilitation effect, and the semantic facilitation in categorization. Our model is based on integrate-and-fire neurons which are put in a network context featuring modular competitio...

We use a masked priming procedure to test two accounts of the picture-word interference (PWI) effect: the lexical selection by competition account (Levelt et al., 1999; Roelofs, 1992) and the response selection account (Lupker, 1979; Miozzo and Caramazza, 2003). In the visible (standard) condition, we replicated the often-observed semantic interference effect. In the masked condition, we observ...

Semantic interference in word retrieval has been observed for both well-learned and ad hoc inter-item relations. We tested whether such semantic interference extends to the blocked cyclic naming of racially homogeneous vs. heterogeneous faces. No information except arbitrarily assigned names was provided for novel faces. Yet we observed interference in naming individuals in homogeneous groups. ...

To explain latency effects in picture-word interference tasks, cognitive models need to account for both interference and stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) effects. As opposed to most models of picture-word interference, which model the time course during the task in a ballistic manner, the RACE model (retrieval by accumulating evidence) presented in this paper accounts for semantic interference ...

This study investigates how different prosodic features affect native speakers' naturalness judgement of L2 English speech by Chinese students. Through subjective judgment by native speakers and objectively measured prosodic features, timing and pitch related prosodic features, as well as segmental goodness of pronunciation have been found to play key roles in native speakers' perception of nat...