Concurrent semantic priming and lexical interference for close semantic relations in blocked‐cyclic picture naming: Electrophysiological signatures

In the present study, we employed event‐related brain potentials to investigate the effects of semantic similarity on different planning stages during language production. We manipulated semantic similarity by controlling feature overlap within taxonomical hierarchies. In a blocked‐cyclic naming task, participants named pictures in repeated cycles, blocked in semantically close, distant, or unrelated conditions. Only closely related items, but not distantly related items, induced semantic blocking effects. In the first presentation cycle, naming was facilitated, and amplitude modulations in the N1 component around 140–180 ms post‐stimulus onset predicted this behavioral facilitation. In contrast, in later cycles, naming was delayed, and a negative‐going posterior amplitude modulation around 250–350 ms post‐stimulus onset predicted this interference. These findings indicate easier object recognition or identification underlying initial facilitation and increased difficulties during lexical selection. The N1 modulation was reduced but persisted in later cycles in which interference dominated, and the posterior negativity was also present in cycle 1 in which facilitation dominated, demonstrating concurrent effects of conceptual priming and lexical interference in all naming cycles. Our assumptions about the functional role these two opposing forces play in producing semantic context effects are further supported by the finding that the joint modulation of these two ERPs on naming latency exclusively emerged when naming closely related, but not unrelated items. The current findings demonstrate that close relations, but not distant taxonomic relations, induce stronger semantic blocking effects, and that temporally overlapping electrophysiological signatures reflect a trade‐off between facilitatory priming and interfering lexical competition. In a blocked‐cyclic picture naming task, we found that only close, but not distant relations, elicited semantic facilitation or interference effects in behavioral and electrophysiological responses. With two functionally dissociable ERP components, facilitatory N1 and inhibitory P2/N2, we demonstrate that semantic priming and lexical competition happen concurrently during speech production. Our study demonstrates for the first time that semantic priming and lexical competition jointly modulate naming latencies, shifting semantic context effects in the direction of facilitation or interference.