Semantic Context Effects in Picture and Sound Naming: Evidence from Event-related Potentials and Pupillometric Data

When a picture is repeatedly named in the context of seman-tically related pictures (homogeneous context), responses areslower than when the picture is repeatedly named in the contextof unrelated pictures (heterogeneous context). This semanticinterference effect in blocked-cyclic naming plays an impor-tant role in devising theories of word production. W & ouml;hner,M & auml;debach, and Jescheniak [W & ouml;hner, S., M & auml;debach, A., &Jescheniak, J. D. Naming pictures and sounds: Stimulus typeaffects semantic context effects.Journal of ExperimentalPsychology: Human Perception and Performance, 47,716-730, 2021] have shown that the effect is substantiallylarger when participants name environmental sounds thanwhen they name pictures. We investigated possible reasonsfor this difference, using EEG and pupillometry. The behavioraldata replicated W & ouml;hner and colleagues. ERPs were more posi-tive in the homogeneous compared with the heterogeneouscontext over central electrode locations between 140-180 msecand 250-350 msec for picture naming and between 250 and350 msec for sound naming, presumably reflecting semanticinterference during semantic and lexical processing. The latercomponent was of similar size for pictures and sounds. ERPswere more negative in the homogeneous compared with theheterogeneous context over frontal electrode locationsbetween 400 and 600 msec only for sounds. The pupillometricdata showed a stronger pupil dilation in the homogeneouscompared with the heterogeneous context only for sounds.The amplitudes of the late ERP negativity and pupil dilation pre-dicted naming latencies for sounds in the homogeneous con-text. The latency of the effects indicates that the difference insemantic interference between picture and sound namingarises at later, presumably postlexical processing stages closerto articulation. We suggest that the processing of the auditorystimuli interferes with phonological response preparation andself-monitoring, leading to enhanced semantic interference.