Words, objects, and locations: Perceptual matching explains spatial interference and facilitation

Many common words have spatial associations (e.g., “bird,” “jump”) that, counterintuitively, hinder identification of visual targets at their associated location. For example, “bird” hinders identification at the top of a display. This spatial interference has been attributed to perceptual competition: “bird” shifts attention upward and evokes the perceptual representation of a bird, which impairs identification of an unrelated target by preoccupying the visual system. We propose an alternative explanation based on perceptual matching: target objects and locations are coded independently for their congruence with the cue word, and codes that are inconsistent with one another hinder identification. Two experiments demonstrated that whereas semantically mismatching targets elicit spatial interference, semantically matching targets elicit spatial facilitation. Two further experiments demonstrated that cue words of strong (e.g., “bird”) and weak (e.g., “arise”) visual strength and imageability elicited equivalent spatial interference. Results suggest that spatial interference is attributable to perceptual matching rather than perceptual competition. Moreover, results supported a graded model of perceptual matching, whereby target identification times are proportional to the physical distance between the expected (i.e., associated) and observed (i.e., actual) target locations.