The Effects of Name Agreement on Dual-Task Picture Naming

The understanding of the relationship between attention and normal language processing can provide insight into the underpinnings of language disorders. Dual-task experiments can be used to understand the allocation of attention during different stages of word production. The central bottleneck model posits that while the central (response selection) stage of any cognitive task is being carried out, the same stage of any other task cannot be simultaneously carried out. The central bottleneck model permits the testing of specific hypotheses about the attentional requirements of particular elements of competing tasks. One purpose of the current study was to determine if the process of lemma selection can be said to require central attention. A secondary aim of this study was to determine whether name agreement is a variable that can be used to index lemma selection. A preliminary study was conducted to construct a set of pictures with high and low name agreement that were balanced on important confounding variables. The main experiment was a dual-task experiment involving tone identification and picture naming. Name agreement effects were examined in the dual-task experiment. The effects were investigated in relation to the central bottleneck model, word production models, and the semantic picture-word interference effect. Low name agreement due to multiple correct names was employed. Tone identification was the primary task, while picture naming was the secondary task. Average picture naming reaction times were significantly longer for low than for high name agreement condition across levels of stimulus onset asynchrony. The results are consistent with a locus of the name agreement effect at the central, response selection stage of the central bottleneck model