Brief article The semantic interference effect in the picture- word interference paradigm: does the response set matter? Alfonso Caramazza * , Albert Costa Harvard University, 33 Kirkland St., Cambridge, MA 02138, USA Received 5 October 1999; received in revised form 12 November 1999; accepted 9 December 1999 Abstract In three picture-word interference experiments we explore some properties of the semantic interference (SI) effect in the picture-word interference paradigm. In Experiments 1 and 2, we test whether SI may be obtained when the distractor words are not part of the response set and when only one picture per semantic category is included in the experiment. In Experiment 3, we explore if the magnitude of the SI effect depends on whether or not the distractor words are part of the response set. Reliable SI effects were obtained in all three experiments and the magnitude of the effect did not vary as a function of whether or not distractor words are part of the response set. These results are problematic for the selection mechanism in the WEAVER11 lexical access model (Levelt, W. J. M., Roelofs, A., & Meyer, A. S. (1999). A theory of lexical access in speech production. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 22, 1±75; Roelofs, A. (1992). A spreading-activation theory of lemma retrieval in speaking. Cognition, 42, 107±142). q 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Speech production; Lexical access; Picture-word interference; WEAVER11 1. Introduction Levelt, Roelofs and Meyer (1999) have proposed one of the more in¯uential theories of speech production. The success of the theory is based on two very appealing properties. First, the theory has an impressively broad scope. It covers Cognition 75 (2000) B51±B64 COGNITION 0010-0277/00/$ - see front matter q 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: S0010-0277(99)00082-7 www.elsevier.com/locate/cognit * Corresponding author. Department of Psychology, William James Hall, Harvard University, 33 Kirkland St., Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. Tel.: 11-617-495-3867; fax: 617-496-6262. E-mail address: caram@wjh.harvard.edu (A. Caramazza)