Phase-dependent word perception emerges from region-specific sensitivity to the statistics of language.

Neural oscillations reflect fluctuations in excitability, which biases the percept of ambiguous sensory input. Why this bias occurs is still not fully understood. We hypothesized that neural populations representing likely events are more sensitive, and thereby become active on earlier oscillatory phases, when the ensemble itself is less excitable. Perception of ambiguous input presented during less-excitable phases should therefore be biased toward frequent or predictable stimuli that have lower activation thresholds. Here, we show such a frequency bias in spoken word recognition using psychophysics, magnetoencephalography (MEG), and computational modelling. With MEG, we found a double dissociation, where the phase of oscillations in the superior temporal gyrus and medial temporal gyrus biased word-identification behavior based on phoneme and lexical frequencies, respectively. This finding was reproduced in a computational model. These results demonstrate that oscillations provide a temporal ordering of neural activity based on the sensitivity of separable neural populations.

With childhood hemispherectomy, one hemisphere can support-but is suboptimal for-word and face recognition.

The right and left cerebral hemispheres are important for face and word recognition, respectively-a specialization that emerges over human development. The question is whether this bilateral distribution is necessary or whether a single hemisphere, be it left or right, can support both face and word recognition. Here, face and word recognition accuracy in patients (median age 16.7 y) with a single hemisphere following childhood hemispherectomy was compared against matched typical controls. In experiment 1, participants viewed stimuli in central vision. Across both face and word tasks, accuracy of both left and right hemispherectomy patients, while significantly lower than controls' accuracy, averaged above 80% and did not differ from each other. To compare patients' single hemisphere more directly to one hemisphere of controls, in experiment 2, participants viewed stimuli in one visual field to constrain initial processing chiefly to a single (contralateral) hemisphere. Whereas controls had higher word accuracy when words were presented to the right than to the left visual field, there was no field/hemispheric difference for faces. In contrast, left and right hemispherectomy patients, again, showed comparable performance to one another on both face and word recognition, albeit significantly lower than controls. Altogether, the findings indicate that a single developing hemisphere, either left or right, may be sufficiently plastic for comparable representation of faces and words. However, perhaps due to increased competition or "neural crowding," constraining cortical representations to one hemisphere may collectively hamper face and word recognition, relative to that observed in typical development with two hemispheres.

Letters away from the looking glass: Developmental trajectory of mirrored and rotated letter processing within words.

Discrimination of reversible mirrored letters (e.g., d and b) poses a challenge when learning to read as it requires overcoming mirror invariance, an evolutionary-old perceptual tendency of processing mirror images as equivalent. The present study investigated when, in reading development, mirror-image discrimination becomes automatic during visual word recognition. The developmental trajectory of masked priming effects was investigated from 2nd to 6th grade and in adults, by manipulating letter type (nonreversible; reversible) and prime condition (control; identity; mirrored; rotated). Standardized identity priming increased along reading development. Beginning readers showed mirror invariance during reversible and nonreversible letter processing. A mirror cost (slower word recognition in mirrored-letter than identity prime condition) was found by 5th-grade but only for reversible letters. By 6th grade, orthographic processing was no longer captive of mirror invariance. A multiple linear regression showed that letter representations, but not phonological processes or age, were a reliable predictor of the rise of mirror-image discrimination in 2nd-4th-graders. The present results suggest a protracted development of automatic mirror-image discrimination during orthographic processing, contingent upon the quality of abstract letter representations. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: We traced the developmental trajectory of mirrored-letter and rotated-letter priming effects (e.g., ibea and ipea as primes of IDEA) in visual word recognition. Beginning readers (2nd-4th-graders) showed mirror invariance and plane-rotation sensitivity in orthographic processing, thus still being susceptible to the perceptual biases in charge in object recognition. A mirror cost was found in 5th-graders but only for reversible letters; orthographic processing was no longer captive of mirror invariance by 6th-grade. The automation of mirror-image discrimination during orthographic processing depends on the quality of letter representations but not on phonological processes or age.

Indirect and direct contributions of executive functions to reading comprehension.

In the current study, we investigated the role of executive functions in explaining how word recognition and language comprehension jointly predict reading comprehension in multilingual and monolingual students (Grades 1 and 2). Specifically, mediation and moderation models were tested and compared to offer a more nuanced understanding of the role of executive functions in reading comprehension. The results provided support for the mediation model in which executive functions indirectly contribute to reading comprehension via word recognition and language comprehension in both language groups. In addition, executive functions directly predicted reading comprehension (i.e., partial mediation). These findings suggest that executive functions serve as general cognitive processes that support word recognition, language comprehension, and reading comprehension (i.e., direct contribution) as well as facilitate connecting word recognition and language comprehension in support for reading comprehension (i.e., indirect contribution). These findings are consistent with prominent models of reading comprehension.

Modeling item-level variance of polysyllabic word reading in developing readers: Exploring semantically related child, word, and child-by-word predictors.

Across word reading development, there are important and evolving relationships between oral and written semantic knowledge. Recent research has focused on these relationships, with accumulating evidence supporting the role of word knowledge and related word characteristics as important factors influencing polysyllabic word reading abilities. The purpose of this study was to investigate how semantic-related effects across child-level skills (e.g., general vocabulary knowledge), word-level properties (e.g., age of acquisition), child-by-word-level familiarity (e.g., item-level familiarity), and interactions between key child attributes and word characteristics (e.g., word reading skill by age of acquisition) contribute to polysyllabic word reading. Specifically, we emphasize the semantic contributions of word-level features to word reading development, which have been relatively underexplored in the literature. A sample of elementary school students oversampled for word reading difficulty (N = 92) in Grades 3 to 5 read a set of polysyllabic words (J = 45) and completed a battery of reading and language-related measures. Using cross-classified random-effects models and accounting for various control variables, semantic-related variables representing item-level familiarity; child-level set for variability; and word-level age of acquisition and number of morphemes were significant predictors in the main-effects model. A significant interaction between sight word efficiency and age of acquisition indicated higher probabilities of correctly reading polysyllabic words at lower levels of acquisition for better readers. Results indicate important semantic-related influences on polysyllabic word reading at the child, word, and child-by-word levels, suggesting meaningful relationships between knowledge of the orthographic form of a word and semantic knowledge in developing readers.

Visual word identification beyond common words: The role of font and letter case in brand names.

While abstractionist theories of visual word recognition propose that perceptual elements like font and letter case are filtered out during lexical access, instance-based theories allow for the possibility that these surface details influence this process. To disentangle these accounts, we focused on brand names embedded in logotypes. The consistent visual presentation of brand names may render them much more susceptible to perceptual factors than common words. In the present study, we compared original and modified brand logos, varying in font or letter case. In Experiment 1, participants decided whether the stimuli corresponded to existing brand names or not, regardless of graphical information. In Experiment 2, participants had to categorize existing brand names semantically - whether they corresponded to a brand in the transportation sector or not. Both experiments showed longer response times for the modified brand names, regardless of font or letter-case changes. These findings challenge the notion that only abstract units drive visual word recognition. Instead, they favor those models that assume that, under some circumstances, the traces in lexical memory may contain surface perceptual information.

Semantic Stroop interference is modulated by the availability of executive resources: Insights from delta-plot analyses and cognitive load manipulation.

We investigated whether, during visual word recognition, semantic processing is modulated by attentional control mechanisms directed at matching semantic information with task-relevant goals. In previous research, we analyzed the semantic Stroop interference as a function of response latency (delta-plot analyses) and found that this phenomenon mainly occurs in the slowest responses. Here, we investigated whether this pattern is due to reduced ability to proactively maintain the task goal in these slowest trials. In two pairs of experiments, participants completed two semantic Stroop tasks: a classic semantic Stroop task (Experiment 1A and 2A) and a semantic Stroop task combined with an n-back task (Experiment 1B and 2B). The two pairs of experiments only differed in the trial pace, which was slightly faster in Experiments 2A and 2B than in Experiments 1A and 1B. By taxing the executive control system, the n-back task was expected to hinder proactive control. Delta-plot analyses of the semantic Stroop task replicated the enhanced effect in the slowest responses, but only under sufficient time pressure. Combining the semantic Stroop task with the n-back task produced a change in the distributional profile of semantic Stroop interference, which we ascribe to a general difficulty in the use of proactive control. Our findings suggest that semantic Stroop interference is, to some extent, dependent on the available executive resources, while also being sensitive to subtle variations in task conditions.

Emotion processing in concrete and abstract words: evidence from eye fixations during reading.

We replicated and extended the findings of Yao et al. [(2018). Differential emotional processing in concrete and abstract words. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 44(7), 1064-1074] regarding the interaction of emotionality, concreteness, and imageability in word processing by measuring eye fixation times on target words during normal reading. A 3 (Emotion: negative, neutral, positive) × 2 (Concreteness: abstract, concrete) design was used with 22 items per condition, with each set of six target words matched across conditions in terms of word length and frequency. Abstract (e.g. shocking, reserved, fabulous) and concrete (e.g. massacre, calendar, treasure) target words appeared (separately) within contextually neutral, plausible sentences. Sixty-three participants each read all 132 experimental sentences while their eye movements were recorded. Analyses using Gamma generalised linear mixed models revealed significant effects of both Emotion and Concreteness on all fixation measures, indicating faster processing for emotional and concrete words. Additionally, there was a significant Emotion × Concreteness interaction which, critically, was modulated by Imageability in early fixation time measures. Emotion effects were significantly larger in higher-imageability abstract words than in lower-imageability ones, but remained unaffected by imageability in concrete words. These findings support the multimodal induction hypothesis and highlight the intricate interplay of these factors in the immediate stages of word processing during fluent reading.

Emotion effects survive non-standard orthographic representations.

Digital communication has generated forms of written speech that may deviate from standard ones, such as Greeklish (a Latin-alphabet-based script) vs. Greek. The question of interest is how different orthographic representations of the same referent (e.g. petaloyda, "butterfly", in Greeklish vs. πϵταλούδα "butterfly" in Greek) may influence word processing, particularly visual word recognition and access to affective connotations. 120 Greek native speakers were tested on a lexical decision task, in which script (Greeklish vs. Greek) and valence (positive vs. negative vs. neutral) were manipulated within participants. Words were matched for word class, frequency, concreteness, length, number of syllables and orthographic neighbourhood. Emotional words differed from neutral ones in valence and arousal. Results yielded faster response times for words written in the standard script (Greek) than the non-standard script (Greeklish). Moreover, regardless of script, response times were negatively correlated with the words' valence, with slowest responses for negative words and fastest for positive ones, suggesting that positive content accelerates lexical access, whereas negative content slows it down. To sum up, although script type was found to affect word recognition, activation of and access to emotional content seemed to resist non-standard characteristics of visual word processing.

An easy method to determine crucial AMEI performance parameters from clinical routine data in individuals - Part 2: dynamic range.

OBJECTIVE: The dynamic range (DR) available to the patient is a central parameter to determine speech intelligibility in quiet. DESIGN: In this retrospective study, the DR for the Vibrant Soundbridge implanted in individual patients was calculated using in situ thresholds of the patients and technical data of the implant system. The average DR across frequencies (0.5, 1, 2, 4 kHz) was correlated with the patients' assigned word recognition score (WRS) in quiet. STUDY SAMPLE: A data set of 66 cases (4 bilateral and 2 revised cases) from 60 implanted patients between 14.3-81.8 years were analysed. RESULTS: The relationship between DR and WRS was described by a sigmoidal growth function with R2=0.6371 and a maximum WRS (upper asymptote) of 93.5%. Word recognition scores in quiet improved with increasing DR. A significant shift in performance was detected from DR bin 2 (10-20 dB, median WRS 55%) to bin 3 (20-30 dB, median WRS 80%) and from DR bin 4 (30-40 dB, median WRS 82.5%) to bin 5 (40-50 dB, median WRS 90%). CONCLUSION: A minimum DR of 20 dB can yield sufficient speech intelligibility in quiet in implanted patients, however, an optimum DR is suggested to be 40 dB.

Associations between illness perceptions, word recognition, and perceived sound quality in cochlear implant users.

OBJECTIVE: Illness perceptions refer to thoughts and ideas an individual has about an illness. The aim was to understand how cochlear implant (CI) users' illness perceptions, in addition to their monosyllabic word recognition abilities, are associated with their self-perceived sound quality. DESIGN: Data were collected during routine CI check-up appointments. Participants completed the Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire (assessing their illness perceptions) and the Hearing Implant Sound Quality Index (assessing their subjective sound quality). Additionally, monosyllabic word recognition abilities were measured with the Freiburg Monosyllable Word Test. Hierarchical regression analysis were utilised to model users' sound quality ratings. Participants' age was entered first as a control variable. In the next step, monosyllabic word recognition was entered. Finally, participants' illness perceptions were entered. STUDY SAMPLE: Fifty-five participants with unilateral CI provision. RESULTS: Monosyllabic word recognition was significant in the second step. When illness perceptions and monosyllabic word recognition were both included in the third step, illness perceptions, but not monosyllabic word recognition, were significant. The model explained 22% of the variance of subjective sound quality. CONCLUSIONS: Monosyllabic word recognition abilities and illness perceptions of CI users are important for their self-reported sound quality, but illness perceptions appear to be potentially more relevant.

The role of body-object interaction in children's concept processing: insights from two Chinese communities.

A rating of body-object interactions (BOIs) reflects the ease with which a human body can interact physically with a word's referent. Studies with adults have demonstrated a facilitating BOI effect in language tasks, with faster and more accurate responses for high BOI words (e.g., cup) than low BOI words (e.g., coal). A few studies have explored the BOI effect in children. However, these studies have all adopted adult-rated BOIs, which may differ from children's. Using child-rated BOIs, the present study investigated the BOI effect in Chinese children and its relationship with age, as well as whether there was a community difference in the BOI effect. Children (aged 7-8) from Mainland China (N = 100) and Hong Kong SAR (HK; N = 90) completed a lexical decision task used to measure the BOI effect. The children were asked to judge whether each item was a real Chinese word; each real word was assigned a child-rated BOI score. After controlling nonverbal intelligence, gender, working memory, and Chinese character reading, a significant BOI effect was observed at the response accuracy and speed levels. The accuracy and latency analyses illustrated a community difference; the BOI effect was smaller in the HK children. This study suggests that BOI measures may be sensitive to the ecological differences between tested communities. The findings support the need for further investigations into the BOI effect across Chinese communities, particularly those in Mainland China.

Decoding the essence of two-character Chinese words: Unveiling valence, arousal, concreteness, familiarity, and imageability through word norming.

Investigation of affective and semantic dimensions of words is essential for studying word processing. In this study, we expanded Tse et al.'s (Behav Res Methods 49:1503-1519, 2017; Behav Res Methods 55:4382-4402, 2023) Chinese Lexicon Project by norming five word dimensions (valence, arousal, familiarity, concreteness, and imageability) for over 25,000 two-character Chinese words presented in traditional script. Through regression models that controlled for other variables, we examined the relationships among these dimensions. We included ambiguity, quantified by the standard deviation of the ratings of a given lexical variable across different raters, as separate variables (e.g., valence ambiguity) to explore their connections with other variables. The intensity-ambiguity relationships (i.e., between normed variables and their ambiguities, like valence with valence ambiguity) were also examined. In these analyses with a large pool of words and controlling for other lexical variables, we replicated the asymmetric U-shaped valence-arousal relationship, which was moderated by valence and arousal ambiguities. We also observed a curvilinear relationship between valence and familiarity and between valence and concreteness. Replicating Brainerd et al.'s (J Exp Psychol Gen 150:1476-1499, 2021; J Mem Lang 121:104286, 2021) quadratic intensity-ambiguity relationships, we found that the ambiguity of valence, arousal, concreteness, and imageability decreases as the value of these variables is extremely low or extremely high, although this was not generalized to familiarity. While concreteness and imageability were strongly correlated, they displayed different relationships with arousal, valence, familiarity, and valence ambiguity, suggesting their distinct conceptual nature. These findings further our understanding of the affective and semantic dimensions of two-character Chinese words. The normed values of all these variables can be accessed via https://osf.io/hwkv7 .

Orthography-phonology consistency in English: Theory- and data-driven measures and their impact on auditory vs. visual word recognition.

Research on orthographic consistency in English words has selectively identified different sub-syllabic units in isolation (grapheme, onset, vowel, coda, rime), yet there is no comprehensive assessment of how these measures affect word identification when taken together. To study which aspects of consistency are more psychologically relevant, we investigated their independent and composite effects on human reading behavior using large-scale databases. Study 1 found effects on adults' naming responses of both feedforward consistency (orthography to phonology) and feedback consistency (phonology to orthography). Study 2 found feedback but no feedforward consistency effects on visual and auditory lexical decision tasks, with the best predictor being a composite measure of consistency across grapheme, rime, OVC, and word-initial letter-phoneme. In Study 3, we explicitly modeled the reading process with forward and backward flow in a bidirectionally connected neural network. The model captured latent dimensions of quasi-regular mapping that explain additional variance in human reading and spelling behavior, compared to the established measures. Together, the results suggest interactive activation between phonological and orthographic word representations. They also validate the role of computational analyses of language to better understand how print maps to sound, and what properties of natural language affect reading complexity.

First Language Lexical Attrition in a First Language Setting: A Multi-Measure Approach Testing Teachers of English.

Research on first language (L1) attrition typically focuses on immigrant populations in their second language (L2) environment, yet we know comparably little about L1 attrition in the L1 setting. This study used two lexical tasks to test L1 attrition, a time-sensitive word decision task and a video retelling. Chinese teachers of English vs. Chinese teachers of other subjects (N = 25/group) were recruited at a secondary school in China. The aim was to provide an exploratory basis of the L2 influence on L1 lexical attrition in the L1 environment, both on the level of lexical comprehension and production. Mixed-effects models were used to analyse multiple measures including response accuracy and reaction times in comprehension, and lexical diversity, density, sophistication, and accuracy in production. The results showed Chinese teachers' L1 lexical attrition in the form of longer response times to high-frequency Chinese words compared to non-English Chinese teachers, and the use of significantly fewer sophisticated words in their retellings. Also, teachers of English were faster and more accurate in decisions about Chinese borrowings from English, suggesting L2-driven influence on their mental lexicon. Considering participants' background information, analyses showed that increased L2 exposure and frequency of use can predict L1 lexical attrition.

The Representations of Chinese Characters: Evidence from Sublexical Components.

Little research has been done about the neural substrate of the sublexical level of Chinese word recognition. In particular, it is unclear how radicals participate in Chinese word processing. We compared two measures of radical combinability, position-general radical combinability (GRC) and position-specific radical combinability (SRC) depending on whether the position of the radical is taken into account. We selected characters with embedded target radicals that had different GRC and SRC measures. These measures were used as predictors in a parametric modulation analysis and a multivariate representational similarity analysis. Human participants with native Mandarin speakers (17 males and 24 females) were asked to read words in search of animal words. Results showed that SRC is a better predictor than GRC in decoding the neural patterns. Whole-brain analysis indicated that SRC is encoded bilaterally in the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG, pars opercularis, and pars triangularis), the middle frontal gyrus (MFG), and a region on the border of the superior parietal lobule and the inferior parietal lobule (SPL/IPL). Region-of-interest-based RSA confirmed the results of the whole-brain analysis. Furthermore, we observed a correlation of another sublexical variable, logographeme composition, with bilateral activity in SPL. Logographemes refer to the basic stroke combinations that form radicals and characters. Finally, we observed involvement of bilateral cerebellum activity in Chinese word recognition. Our findings confirm the importance of sublexical components (SRC and logographeme composition) in Chinese word recognition and also confirm that Chinese word recognition involves more bilateral processing than word recognition in alphabetical languages.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Chinese is a logographic language. However, characters contain informative subword components (radicals, logographemes, and strokes). We investigated whether the position of the radical is important. We presented carefully selected words and looked where brain activity correlated with subword information. Results indicate that position-dependent radicals predict brain encoding in a network of regions associated with Chinese word recognition, including higher order regions such as bilateral IFG, MFG, and SPL/IPL. Logographeme composition had an effect as well. Our findings provide strong evidence (1) for the importance of position-specific radical information and logographemes in Chinese word recognition, (2) that current brain imaging techniques are best suited to study these, and (3) that confirms the interactive nature of Chinese character recognition.

Developmental emergence of holistic processing in word recognition.

Holistic processing (HP) of faces refers to the obligatory, simultaneous processing of the parts and their relations, and it emerges over the course of development. HP is manifest in a decrement in the perception of inverted versus upright faces and a reduction in face processing ability when the relations between parts are perturbed. Here, adopting the HP framework for faces, we examined the developmental emergence of HP in another domain for which human adults have expertise, namely, visual word processing. Children, adolescents, and adults performed a lexical decision task and we used two established signatures of HP for faces: the advantage in perception of upright over inverted words and nonwords and the reduced sensitivity to increasing parts (word length). Relative to the other groups, children showed less of an advantage for upright versus inverted trials and lexical decision was more affected by increasing word length. Performance on these HP indices was strongly associated with age and with reading proficiency. Also, the emergence of HP for word perception was not simply a result of improved visual perception over the course of development as no group differences were observed on an object decision task. These results reveal the developmental emergence of HP for orthographic input, and reflect a further instance of experience-dependent tuning of visual perception. These results also add to existing findings on the commonalities of mechanisms of word and face recognition. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Children showed less of an advantage for upright versus inverted trials compared to adolescents and adults. Relative to the other groups, lexical decision in children was more affected by increasing word length. Performance on holistic processing (HP) indices was strongly associated with age and with reading proficiency. HP emergence for word perception was not due to improved visual perception over development as there were no group differences on an object decision task.

Coping with dialects from birth: Role of variability on infants' early language development. Insights from Norwegian dialects.

Previous research suggests that exposure to accent variability can affect toddlers' familiar word recognition and word comprehension. The current preregistered study addressed the gap in knowledge on early language development in infants exposed to two dialects from birth and assessed the role of dialect similarity in infants' word recognition and comprehension. A 12-month-old Norwegian-learning infants, exposed to native Norwegian parents speaking the same or two Norwegian dialects, took part in two eye-tracking tasks, assessing familiar word form recognition and word comprehension. Their parents' speech was assessed for similarity by native Norwegian speakers. First, in contrast to previous research, our results revealed no listening preference for words over nonwords in both monodialectal and bidialectal infants, suggesting potential language-specific differences in the onset of word recognition. Second, the results showed evidence for word comprehension in monodialectal infants, but not in bidialectal infants, suggesting that exposure to dialectal variability impacts early word acquisition. Third, perceptual similarity between parental dialects tendentially facilitated bidialectal infants' word recognition and comprehension. Forth, the results revealed a strong correlation between the raters and parents' assessment of similarity between dialects, indicating that parental estimations can be reliably used to assess infants' speech variability at home. Finally, our results revealed a strong relationship between word recognition and comprehension in monodialectal infants and the absence of such a relationship in bidialectal infants, suggesting that either these two skills do not necessarily align in infants exposed to more variable input, or that the alignment might occur at a later stage.

The development of spoken word recognition in informative and uninformative sentence contexts.

Although there is ample evidence documenting the development of spoken word recognition from infancy to adolescence, it is still unclear how development of word-level processing interacts with higher-level sentence processing, such as the use of lexical-semantic cues, to facilitate word recognition. We investigated how the ability to use an informative verb (e.g., draws) to predict an upcoming word (picture) and suppress competition from similar-sounding words (pickle) develops throughout the school-age years. Eye movements of children from two age groups (5-6 years and 9-10 years) were recorded while the children heard a sentence with an informative or neutral verb (The brother draws/gets the small picture) in which the final word matched one of a set of four pictures, one of which was a cohort competitor (pickle). Both groups demonstrated use of the informative verb to more quickly access the target word and suppress cohort competition. Although the age groups showed similar ability to use semantic context to facilitate processing, the older children demonstrated faster lexical access and more robust cohort suppression in both informative and uninformative contexts. This suggests that development of word-level processing facilitates access of top-down linguistic cues that support more efficient spoken language processing. Whereas developmental differences in the use of semantic context to facilitate lexical access were not explained by vocabulary knowledge, differences in the ability to suppress cohort competition were explained by vocabulary. This suggests a potential role for vocabulary knowledge in the resolution of lexical competition and perhaps the influence of lexical competition dynamics on vocabulary development.

Continuous cursor-captured conceptual competition: Investigating the spatiotemporal dynamics of spoken word comprehension.

Semantically related concepts are coactivated during spoken word comprehension. Two internet-mediated cursor-tracking experiments examined the spatiotemporal dynamics of this coactivation. Participants viewed visual arrays containing images of a target (e.g., accordion) and a semantically related (e.g., banjo) or unrelated (e.g., plum) distractor whilst hearing the target word (e.g., "accordion"). Participants were tasked with moving their cursor from the bottom of the visual array to the target in one of the upper corners. In contrast to Experiment 1, the onset of stimulus presentation was triggered by cursor movement in Experiment 2. Across both experiments, temporal (e.g., RT) and spatial (e.g., AUC) measures revealed significantly greater attraction to images of semantically related compared with unrelated distractors. These results reveal that online cursor-tracking methods are sensitive to semantic competition and suitable for studying the activation of semantic knowledge during language comprehension.