A joint investigation of facilitation and interference effects of semantic and phonological similarity in a...

Semantic and phonological similarity effects provide critical constraints on the mechanisms underlying language production. In the present study, we jointly investigated effects of semantic and phonological similarity using the continuous naming task. In the semantic condition, Chinese Mandarin speakers named a list of pictures composed of 12 semantic category sets with 5 items from each semantic category, while in the phonological condition, they named a list of pictures from 12 phonological sets of 5 items sharing a spoken syllable. Related pictures occurred on adjacent trials, or were separated by 2, 4, or 6 unrelated pictures. Similar results were found across the semantic and phonological conditions: naming was facilitated by the directly preceding production of a related picture. For nonconsecutive related responses, naming latency increased linearly as a function of the number of preceding production instances of related pictures. Parallel patterns of facilitation and interference effects arising from semantic and phonological similarity suggest universal principles which govern language production. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).