Typing pictures: Linguistic processing cascades into finger movements

• We investigated response onset and response execution in typing.
• Lexical-semantic variables influenced response onset and interkeystroke intervals.
• Orthographic variables were found to affect only response execution.
• Results seem coherent with cascaded flow of information between linguistic and motor processes.

The present study investigated the effect of psycholinguistic variables on measures of response latency and mean interkeystroke interval in a typewritten picture naming task, with the aim to outline the functional organization of the stages of cognitive processing and response execution associated with typewritten word production. Onset latencies were modulated by lexical and semantic variables traditionally linked to lexical retrieval, such as word frequency, age of acquisition, and naming agreement. Orthographic variables, both at the lexical and sublexical level, appear to influence just within-word interkeystroke intervals, suggesting that orthographic information may play a relevant role in controlling actual response execution. Lexical-semantic variables also influenced speed of execution. This points towards cascaded flow of activation between stages of lexical access and response execution.