A study examined the effect of variation in category dominance on retrieval latencies (and errors) from semantic memory. Subjects, 66 students enrolled in an introductory psychology course, were required to perform 6 successive retrievals from each of 18 conceptual categories. The six retrievals consisted of two successive blocks of three from either high, medium, or low dominance tasks. Increasing retrieval latencies and increasing number of errors indicated that the build-up of inhibition across position was more immediate for the low-dominance than for the high-dominance items. These results support the position that the number of prior retrievals from the same conceptual category is the primary determiner of the incrementing of retrieval inhibition. Effort-induced slowdown of retrieval did not occur. These results suggest that two opposing processes occur in category access: a general initial facilitation and a cumulating inhibition. The cumulating inhibition is directly related to the number of prior retrievals, both explicit and implicit. (JL)