TY  - JOUR
A1  - Rabovsky, Milena
A1  - Schad, Daniel
A1  - Abdel Rahman, Rasha
T1  - Semantic richness and density effects on language production
BT  - Electrophysiological and behavioral evidence
JF  - Journal of experimental psychology : Learning, memory, and cognition
N2  - Language production ultimately aims to convey meaning. Yet words differ widely in the richness and density of their semantic representations, and these differences impact conceptual and lexical processes during speech planning. Here, we replicated the recent finding that semantic richness, measured as the number of associated semantic features according to semantic feature production norms, facilitates object naming. In contrast, intercorrelational semantic feature density, measured as the degree of intercorrelation of a concept's features, presumably resulting in the coactivation of closely related concepts, has an inhibitory influence. We replicated the behavioral effects and investigated their relative time course and electrophysiological correlates. Both the facilitatory effect of high semantic richness and the inhibitory influence of high feature density were reflected in an increased posterior positivity starting at about 250 ms, in line with previous reports of posterior positivities in paradigms employing contextual manipulations to induce semantic interference during language production. Furthermore, amplitudes at the same posterior electrode sites were positively correlated with object naming times between about 230 and 380 ms. The observed effects follow naturally from the assumption of conceptual facilitation and simultaneous lexical competition and are difficult to explain by language production theories dismissing lexical competition.
KW  - picture naming
KW  - ERPs
KW  - semantic richness
KW  - semantic features
KW  - lexical
KW  - competition
Y1  - 2021
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0000940
SN  - 0278-7393
SN  - 1939-1285
VL  - 47
IS  - 3
SP  - 508
EP  - 517
PB  - American Psychological Association
CY  - Washington
ER  -