The role of visual form in lexical access: Evidence from Chinese classifier production

The interface between the conceptual and lexical systems was investigated in a word production setting. We tested the effects of two conceptual dimensions - semantic category and visual shape - on the selection of Chinese nouns and classifiers. Participants named pictures with nouns ("rope") or classifier-noun phrases ("one-classifier-rope") in three blocked picture naming experiments. In Experiment 1, we observed larger semantic category interference with phrases than with nouns, suggesting comparable semantic categorical effects on classifier and noun selection. In Experiments 2 and 3, items with similar shapes produced an interference effect when they were named with classifier-noun phrases, but not with bare nouns. This indicates that object shape modulates classifier (but not noun) selection. We conclude that object shape properties can by themselves influence word selection processes just as semantic relationships (captured by semantic category) do. The factors operating during word selection may be more diverse than has been previously thought.