Selective attention and distractor frequency in naming performance: Comment on Dhooge and Hartsuiker (2010)

Roelofs, A., Piai, V., & Schriefers, H. (2011). Selective attention and distractor frequency in naming performance: Comment on Dhooge and Hartsuiker (2010). Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 37, 1032-1038. doi:10.1037/a0023328.
E. Dhooge and R. J. Hartsuiker (2010) reported experiments showing that picture naming takes longer with low- than high-frequency distractor words, replicating M. Miozzo and A. Caramazza (2003). In addition, they showed that this distractor-frequency effect disappears when distractors are masked or preexposed. These findings were taken to refute models like WEAVER++ (A. Roelofs, 2003) in which words are selected by competition. However, Dhooge and Hartsuiker do not take into account that according to this model, picture-word interference taps not only into word production but also into attentional processes. Here, the authors indicate that WEAVER++ contains an attentional mechanism that accounts for the distractor-frequency effect (A. Roelofs, 2005). Moreover, the authors demonstrate that the model accounts for the influence of masking and preexposure, and does so in a simpler way than the response exclusion through self-monitoring account advanced by Dhooge and Hartsuiker
Publication type
Journal article
Publication date
2011

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