Cumulative semantic interference in young children's picture naming

In children and adults, naming an item sometimes interferes with later attempts to name other items. Adult speakers experience cumulative semantic interference, interpreted as the result of incremental learning. Studies to date have not examined whether incremental learning can also account for interference in children. This study examined context effects on picture naming in 3-year-old children, and investigated whether children, like adults, show interference that is semantically based and cumulative. Children named pictures from semantically homogeneous and mixed sets. Response latency, accuracy, and repetition errors were recorded. The results demonstrated a progressive slowing of responses in the semantically homogeneous condition that was greater than that observed for the mixed condition. There were no significant effects for accuracy. Repetition errors, although infrequent, patterned similarly to previous reports for adults. The results indicate that preschool-aged children experience cumulative semantic interference in naming, and suggest that incremental learning may account for interference effects across development.