The Influence of Focus on the Activation of Alternatives in Speech Production—An Online Picture-Word-Interference Experiment

Autor: Beate Bergmann, Yanru Lu, Katharina Spalek
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2023
Předmět:
Zdroj: Languages, Vol 8, Iss 2, p 110 (2023)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2226-471X
DOI: 10.3390/languages8020110
Popis: In previous picture naming tasks, semantically related distractor words (co-hyponyms to the target word) induce interference, which is usually taken as evidence for lexical competition. In an online picture-word-interference experiment, we showed that distractor words that share a feature with the target (here: their natural prototypical color), also induced interference. Pictures were not named with single words but with short descriptive sentences (“The heart is red”). Focus on the noun modulated the interference effect. In particular, when target and distractor were presented simultaneously, the interference effect was significantly reduced in the narrow focus condition, compared to broad focus. We discuss our findings for focus production against the findings on language comprehension reported in the literature, which mostly observed facilitatory effects of focus marking on the comprehension of focus alternatives.
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals