Inhibiting word generation with word presentations

The ability to generate words of a given category is found to be impaired when other words of the same category are being heard (Experiments 1-4). Little if any impairment arises from hearing words of a different category (Experiments 1, 2, and 3). This pattern of results occurs with categories defined both semantically (Experiments 1, 2, and 4) and graphemically (Experiment 3). The extent of the impairment is found to be comparable to that which occurs when other words of the same category are studied and recalled prior to generation (Experiment 4). These findings are discussed in the context of other inhibitory phenomena.