The influence of neighborhood density (and neighborhood frequency) in Spanish speech production: A follow-up report

Abstract

Vitevitch & Stamer (2006) observed that Spanish speakers in a picture-naming task named words with dense neighborhoods more slowly than words with sparse neighborhoods; a finding that contrasts with results typically obtained in studies of speech production in English (Vitevitch, 2002b). Baus, Costa & Carreiras (2008) raised concerns about the stimuli employed in Vitevitch & Stamer (2006), and found with a different set of pictures that Spanish speakers in a picture-naming task named words with dense neighborhoods more quickly than words with sparse neighborhoods. Several supplemental analyses of the stimuli employed in Vitevitch & Stamer (2006) are reported. Furthermore, the results of a picture-naming experiment raise concerns about the stimuli used by Baus, Costa & Carreiras (2008). Finally, an analysis of naming times from an independent set of pictures (Bates et al., 2003) replicated the pattern of results initially observed in Vitevitch & Stamer (2006): phonologically similar words compete during speech production in Spanish.