When More Is Less: A Counterintuitive Effect of Distractor Frequency in the Picture–Word Interference Paradigm

Pictures were shown with superimposed word distractors of high and low frequency. Low-frequency distractors produced greater interference on picture naming than did high-frequency distractors. This distractor frequency effect was not affected by manipulations that facilitated or hindered distractor recognition. Interference was reduced for distractors that were read aloud several times prior to being shown in the picture-naming task. Together these findings suggest that the distractor frequency effect has its locus at some stage of lexical access for production. Other findings further constrain hypotheses about which level of speech production is involved in the effect. The distractor frequency effect has implications for models of lexical processing in speaking as well as for accounts of picture–word interference and the frequency effect.