Web-based language production experiments: Semantic interference assessment is robust for spoken and typed response...

Area of Science:

• Psycholinguistics
• Cognitive Science
• Computational Linguistics

Background:

• Investigating language production online presents challenges in temporal precision and audio quality.
• Online research offers significant advantages in efficiency, ecological validity, and participant diversity for psycholinguistic studies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To provide evidence that language production can be effectively studied online.
• To compare reaction time (RT) distributions and error rates between online written and spoken responses.
• To assess semantic interference effects in both response modalities within an online setting.

Main Methods:

• Two pre-registered online experiments (n=30 each) were conducted using participants' web browsers.
• A cumulative semantic interference (CSI) paradigm was utilized, requiring participants to name objects from semantic categories.
• Experiment 1 used overt spoken responses, while Experiment 2 used typed keyboard responses for RT analysis.

Main Results:

• The study confirmed that online language production research is viable.
• Cumulative semantic interference effects were robustly replicated in both spoken and typed online responses.
• Typed responses in online settings demonstrated qualitatively similar results to traditional lab-based spoken responses.

Conclusions:

• Online research methods are suitable for studying language production, including reaction time effects.
• Typed responses via keyboard offer a technically simple and efficient alternative for online psycholinguistic research.
• The findings open new avenues for large-scale, diverse, and ecologically valid language production studies.