On the phonological activation of object names in non-verbal tasks

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This research investigates whether pictures of objects activate the phonology of their names, even when naming isn't required. Nine visual search experiments were conducted, where participants indicated the presence or absence of a previously seen target object among four objects. In half of the trials, one object was semantically related to the target, which interfered with search latencies, demonstrating the sensitivity of the procedure. However, phonologically related competitors did not cause interference. Using object pairs with rhyming names revealed a small interference effect, suggesting that objects activated their phonological codes. Subsequent experiments manipulated various procedural features, indicating that the phonological effect may depend on a silent naming strategy employed by participants, possibly influenced by prior familiarization with the objects and their names. Altering the task to focus attention on one side of the display highlighted the role of voluntary attention in processing competitors. Semantically related competitors caused interference when at the task-relevant location, but no effect was seen for phonologically related competitors, although a trend towards interference was noted. Two control experiments confirmed the sensitivity of the materials used, showing reliable phonological facilitation when competitor names served as auditory distractors in a standard picture-word interference task.