ABSTRACT The nature and strength of semantic effects in speech production, often studied using the picture‐word interference (PWI) paradigm, are known to be influenced by object‐level variables such as the type of semantic relationship. However, the role of subject‐level cognitive factors, particularly working memory capacity (WMC), remains largely unexplored. This study investigated how WMC modulates semantic interference from category‐related distractors and facilitation from associative‐related distractors. Participants pre‐screened into high ( n = 29) or low ( n = 29) WMC groups completed two PWI tasks (categorical and associative relations) in a single session. Naming latencies were recorded as the primary measure. For categorical relations, a robust semantic interference effect was observed. Crucially, this interference was significantly stronger in low‐WMC individuals compared to high‐WMC individuals. Conversely, for associative relations, a semantic facilitation effect was found, which was markedly more pronounced in the high‐WMC group than in the low‐WMC group. These findings demonstrate that working memory capacity dynamically regulates the strength of semantic effects without altering their fundamental direction: attenuating interference and enhancing facilitation. This study bridges a critical theoretical gap by incorporating individual differences into the architecture of speech production, demonstrating that WMC is a key moderator shaping the dynamics of lexical access.
Fang et al. (Sat,) studied this question.