SEMANTIC INTERFERENCE, ORTHOGRAPHIC FACILITATION, AND THEIR INTERACTION IN NAMING TASKS

The relative merits of 3 views on the cause of the Stroop-like semantic interference effect in naming tasks were investigated in 2 experiments. In the Ist experiment, which consisted of a picture-word interference task, the authors found the usual Stroop-like semantic interference effect for distracter words that were not orthographically related to the picture's name. However, the semantic interference effect was significantly reduced when the distracter words were orthographically related to the picture's name. The results were replicated in the 2nd experiment by using a different paradigm in which, instead of pictures, definitions were used as target stimuli. The results are interpreted as favoring one of the views: a word-form retrieval account of the semantic interference effect in naming tasks.