Semantic activation during object naming

Summary The study deals with the processes of semantic activation which accompany the response of naming an object. A general model of semantic activation is presented, characterized by the proposal of the existence of different components of the semantic representations that constitute the conceptual nodes corresponding to objects. Within these, a distinction is made between elements corresponding to physical properties of the stimulus objects, and more abstract, functional elements. Two distinct routes are proposed for the activation of the concept node, a direct and an indirect one. A further distinction made in the present study is between categories characterized predominantly in terms of perceptual properties, and primarily conceptual categories.The study reports two sets of experiments, the first one offering support to the distinction of two activation routes, the second to the notion of the existence of two types of categories. This latter distinction also allows a convincing explanation for various facts reported in the literature, in particular for the difference in categorization and in naming latencies for objects and for words.