Good Essay On Cumulative Semantic Inhibition

Howard, Nickels, Coltheart, and Cole-Virtue (2005) theorized that cumulative interference occurs in word retrieval. Such result from prior exemplars retrieval of a similar semantic category i.e. cumulative semantic inhibition. The inhibition could only occur in the spoken word system processes if three properties are present. These properties are sharing, priming, and competition. They showed that there was no any current spoken word production with all the above properties.
The results showed that RTs increased monotonically with changes in the ordinal position but was unaffected by lag. However, there was no interaction between ordinal position and the lag. After an analysis of all the data, they found that picture naming latency slowed with an addition of 30 ms for every semantically related item that preceded the picture. To show that a computational model with the three properties could simulate the results, and any model lacking could not, the researchers analyzed the computational data models. The results affirmed that all the three properties are necessary for cumulative inhibition to occur. Data models that had any of the three factors excluded showed that the cumulative inhibition did not occur. However, the researchers noted that the cumulative semantic inhibition in their research did not refute the speech production models that existed. On the contrary, it was difficult to explain them in the current forms. Therefore, there was a need to modify them that create various challenges. Such modifications may make the model not to simulate data that they can currently simulate, and there was no surety that they would simulate the cumulative semantic inhibition.

References

Howard D., Nickels L., Coltheart M., and Cole-Virtue J. (2005). Cumulative semantic inhibition in picture naming: experimental and computational studies. School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE1 7RU, UK.