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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Mar 8, 2026

A Semantic Priming Event-related Potential ERP Task to Study Lexico-semantic and Visuo-semantic Processing in Autism Spectrum Disorder

A Semantic Priming Event-related Potential ERP Task to Study Lexico-semantic and Visuo-semantic Processing in Autism Spectrum Disorder

Published on: April 12, 2018

The development of semantic blocking in children.

Harrie Boelens¹, Wido La Heij¹

¹Institute of Psychology and Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden University, The Netherlands.

The British Journal of Developmental Psychology

|January 17, 2017

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

The semantic blocking effect, where naming pictures takes longer with related images, is present in children aged 5-12 and doesn't change with age. This suggests it differs from other cognitive interference tasks.

Keywords:

development of semantic blocking executive control interference semantic blocking

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Psychology
Developmental Psychology
Linguistics

Background:

The semantic blocking effect, where picture naming is slower with semantically related items, is well-documented in adults.
Limited research exists on the developmental trajectory of this effect in children.
Age-related differences in cognitive tasks are often used to understand inhibitory control mechanisms.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the semantic blocking effect in children aged 5-7 and 10-12.
To determine if the size of the semantic blocking effect changes with age in children.
To explore the implications of the findings for understanding inhibitory control development.

Main Methods:

A blocked cyclic naming procedure was employed.
Participants included two age groups: 5- to 7-year-olds and 10- to 12-year-olds.
The semantic blocking effect was measured by comparing naming times for related vs. unrelated picture contexts.

Main Results:

A significant semantic blocking effect was observed in both age groups.
The magnitude of the semantic blocking effect was comparable between the 5-7 and 10-12 year-old groups.
The effect did not emerge during the initial experimental cycles for either age group.

Conclusions:

The semantic blocking effect is present and stable in children from 5 to 12 years old.
The findings suggest the underlying mechanisms of semantic blocking may differ from those in tasks like the Stroop task.
This developmental stability supports a distinction between unintentional and intentional inhibitory control processes.