Color-picture interference in children: effects of spatial and temporal segregation of color and form.

Children 5 to 8 years of age find it harder to name the color of a meaningful picture (e.g., of a table) than to name the color of an abstract form.

Color-object interference: further tests of an executive control account.

Young children are slower in naming the color of a meaningful picture than in naming the color of an abstract form (Stroop-like color-object interference). The current experiments tested an executive control account of this phenomenon. First, color-object interference was observed in 6- and 8-year-olds but not in 12- and 16-year-olds (Experiment 1).

Word comprehension in a second language: a direct or an indirect route to meaning?

For bilingual persons, comprehension of a word in a second language (L2 word) could be achieved via an indirect route, in which the L2 word is first translated into the first language (L1) before meaning is accessed, or via a direct route, in which an L2 word directly activates its meaning. To test these two accounts, proficient Dutch-English bilinguals were asked to translate and to categorize L2 words of high and low familiarity. These L2 words were accompanied by a Dutch context word that was either phonologically related or unrelated to its Dutch translation equivalent.

In defense of the lexical-competition account of picture-word interference: a comment on Finkbeiner and Caramazza (2006).

On the basis of two empirical observations, Finkbeiner and Caramazza (2006) take issue with the generally accepted interpretation of semantic interference in the picture-word interference task in terms of lexical competition. As an alternative, they propose a response-selection account, in which semantic interference is attributed to the time needed to remove the inappropriate (word-reading) response from an output buffer. In this comment we argue that the empirical work discussed provides an interesting challenge for current models of language production, but that the authors' alternative account is at variance with at least three robust empirical findings in the language production literature.