RT Journal Article
T1 The mechanisms underlying grammatical gender selection in language production: a meta-analysis of the gender congruency effect
A1 Sá-Leite Dias, Ana Rita
A1 Luna, Karlos
A1 Gomes Tomaz, Ângela
A1 Fraga Carou, Isabel
A1 Comesaña, Montserrat
K1 Gender agreement
K1 Gender congruency effect
K1 Grammatical gender
K1 Picture-word interference paradigm
AB Grammatical gender retrieval during language production has been largely addressed through the picture-word interference (PWI) paradigm, with the aim of capturing the so-called gender congruency effect (GCE). In the PWI paradigm, participants name target pictures while ignoring superimposed written distractor nouns. The GCE shows faster responses when target and distractor nouns share the same gender than when gender differs. Yet, the locus of this effect is not clear: it might be either due to the selection of a determiner or due to the selection of a gender node at the lemma level, which may be primed or delayed by competition. Importantly, many of those who argue that the GCE is not a genuine effect of gender conclude that gender is a feature that is retrieved automatically. Such a claim is controversial since the PWI paradigm has been seen as too complex and perhaps not sensitive enough to capture small effects. Besides, for Romance languages, mixed results draw a complex picture with effects occurring mainly in the opposite direction, i.e., a gender incongruency effect (GIE). In the present study, we conducted a meta-analysis of the 18 studies that have addressed this issue. The results confirm the existence of the GCE as a determiner effect in Germanic/Slavic languages, while little support is found for the GIE in Romance languages. Nevertheless, we argue that the absence of gender effects in Germanic and Slavic languages within the PWI paradigm cannot be taken as evidence of an absence of priming/competition during gender selection and thus as evidence of an automatic selection of gender. Parametric replication of previous studies, especially those featuring bound morphemes, together with the use of other measuring techniques such as event related potentials are suggested as a way forward
PB Elsevier
YR 2022
FD 2022
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10347/27629
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10347/27629
LA eng
NO Cognition 224 (2022) 105060
NO This work was supported by the Government of Spain, Spanish Ministry of Education and Vocational Training, through the Training program for Academic Staff (Ayudas para la Formación del Profesorado Universitario, FPU [FPU16/06983]); the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation [research project PID2019-110583GB-I00]; the Galician Government [grant for research groups ED431B 2019/2020]; and the Foundation for Science and Technology of Portugal [IF / 00784/2013 / CP1158 / CT0013]. Finally, the study has also been partially supported by the FCT and the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education through national funds and co-financed by FEDER- European Regional Development Fund through COMPETE2020 under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement [POCI-01-0145- FEDER-007653]
DS Minerva
RD 22 abr 2026