Figure 1.

Schematic description of the experimental design. The same noun cues were visually presented during silent reading and overt verb generation tasks. The nouns from Strong Association and Weak Association categories were presented within blocks of eight or nine nouns, one category per block, alternating throughout each task. During the verb generation task the cues were presented for 3500 ms with a 300–500 ms interstimulus interval. During the reading task the noun cues were presented for 1000 ms. During Verb Generation task the subjects were required to verbally respond to the presented noun with an associated verb. The verbal responses were tape recorded and responses’ onsets were detected by an accelerometer placed on the participant’s throat.