Theories of word naming interact with spelling--sound consistency.

In a previous study (E. Strain, K. Patterson, & M. S. Seidenberg, 1995), the authors concluded that word naming is characterized by an interaction between spelling-sound typicality and word imageability, thus implicating a role for word meaning in the naming process. J. Monaghan and A. W. Ellis (2002) reject E. Strain et al.'s conclusion, arguing that it is age of acquisition (AoA) and not imageability that interacts with spelling-sound typicality. In this article, the authors question their alternative interpretation (a) by raising a number of conceptual and methodological issues germane to this debate and (b) by presenting new data that confirm a significant interaction between spelling-sound typicality and imageability in word-naming latencies, an interaction that is reliable when word AoA is controlled in a regression analysis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

What exactly interacts with spelling--sound consistency in word naming?

Word frequency, age of acquisition (AoA), and imageability were combined with spelling-sound consistency, and their effects on word naming were examined. Frequency and AoA interacted with consistency (Experiments 1 and 2). Imageability did not (Experiment 3). Experiment 4 replicated Experiment 2 of E. Strain, K. E. Patterson, and M. S. Seidenberg's (1995) study and obtained the same apparent effect of imageability on naming. That effect disappeared when AoA was entered as a covariate. An explanation of the interactions of consistency with frequency and AoA is offered in terms of the properties of adaptive connectionist networks given gradual and cumulative training. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Word frequency effects in oral reading are not merely age-of-acquisition effects in disguise.

Four experiments examined the effects of the rated age of acquisition (AoA) and word frequency on oral reading latencies and word pronunciation durations. In Experiment 1, both AoA and frequency had independent (and noninteracting) effects on naming latencies. Experiment 2 found no effect of either AoA or frequency on delayed naming, indicating that prepared articulation time was not a factor contributing to the naming latencies observed in Experiment 1. Experiment 3 reported 2 replications of the study by C. M. Morrison and A. W. Ellis (1995). Both replications found reliable effects of frequency and AoA, whereas Morrison and Ellis found an effect of AoA but no effect of frequency. Experiment 4 found a strong AoA effect on pronunciation durations, with a smaller and less reliable effect of frequency. It was concluded that frequency affects the visual recognition of words and that AoA affects the production of lexical phonology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age-of-Acquisition Effects in Word and Picture Identification.

Words and pictures with earlier learned labels are processed faster than words and pictures with later learned labels. This age-of-acquisition (AoA) effect has been extensively investigated in many different types of tasks. This article provides a review of these studies including picture naming, word naming, speeded word naming, word pronunciation durations, lexical decisions, eye fixation times, face recognition, and episodic memory tasks. The measurement and validity of AoA ratings is discussed, along with statistical techniques used for exploring AoA's influence. Finally, theories of AoA are outlined, and evidence for and against the various theories is presented. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age of acquisition and word frequency effects in picture naming: A dual-task investigation.

In 2 experiments, the authors explored age of acquisition (AoA) and word frequency (WF) effects in picture naming using the psychological refractory period paradigm. In Experiment 1, participants named a picture and then, a short time later, categorized 1 of 3 possible auditory tones as high, medium, or low. Both AoA (Experiment 1A) and WF (Experiment 1B) effects propagated onto tone discrimination reaction times (RTs), with the effects of AoA being stronger. In Experiment 2, the to-be-named picture followed the auditory tone by a varying interval. As the interval decreased, picture naming RTs increased. The relationship between the interval and AoA (Experiment 2A) was reliably underadditive; AoA effects were eliminated at the shortest interval. In contrast, WF (Experiment 2B) was additive with the effects of the interval. These results demonstrate an empirical dissociation between AoA and WF effects. AoA affects processing stages that precede those that are sensitive to WF. The implications for theories of picture naming are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dissociating word frequency and age of acquisition: The klein effect revived (and reversed).

The Klein effect (G. S. Klein, 1964) refers to the finding that high-frequency words produce greater interference in a color-naming task than low-frequency words. The present study used the Klein effect to investigate the relationship between frequency and age of acquisition (AoA) by measuring their influence on color naming. Two experiments showed reliable effects of frequency (though in the opposite direction to that reported by Klein) but no effects of AoA. Experiment 1 produced a dissociation between frequency and AoA when manipulated orthogonally. Experiment 2 produced the same dissociation using different stimuli. In contrast, both variables reliably influenced word naming. These findings are inconsistent with the view that frequency and AoA are 2 aspects of a single underlying mechanism. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Why do non-color words interfere with color naming?

In the non-color-word Stroop task, university students' response latencies were longer for low-frequency than for higher frequency target words. Visual identity primes facilitated color naming in groups reading the prime silently or processing it semantically (Experiment 1) but did not when participants generated a rhyme of the prime (Experiment 3). With auditory identity primes, generating an associate or a rhyme of the prime produced interference (Experiments 2 and 3). Color-naming latencies were longer for nonwords than for words (Experiment 4). There was a small long-term repetition benefit in color naming for low-frequency words that had been presented in the lexical decision task (Experiment 5). Facilitation of word recognition speeds color naming except when phonological activation of the base word increases response competition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Tracing attention and the activation flow in spoken word planning using eye movements.

The flow of activation from concepts to phonological forms within the word production system was examined in 3 experiments. In Experiment 1, participants named pictures while ignoring superimposed distractor pictures that were semantically related, phonologically related, or unrelated. Eye movements and naming latencies were recorded. The distractor pictures affected the latencies of gaze shifting and vocal naming. The magnitude of the phonological effects increased linearly with latency, excluding lapses of attention as the cause of the effects. In Experiment 2, no distractor effects were obtained when both pictures were named. When pictures with superimposed distractor words were named or the words were read in Experiment 3, the words influenced the latencies of gaze shifting and picture naming, but the pictures yielded no such latency effects in word reading. The picture-word asymmetry was obtained even with equivalent reading and naming latencies. The picture-picture effects suggest that activation spreads continuously from concepts to phonological forms, whereas the picture-word asymmetry indicates that the amount of activation is limited and task dependent. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Capacity demands of phoneme selection in word production: New evidence from dual-task experiments.

Three dual-task experiments investigated the capacity demands of phoneme selection in picture naming. On each trial, participants named a target picture (Task 1) and carried out a tone discrimination task (Task 2). To vary the time required for phoneme selection, the authors combined the targets with phonologically related or unrelated distractor pictures (Experiment 1) or words, which were clearly visible (Experiment 2) or masked (Experiment 3). When pictures or masked words were presented, the tone discrimination and picture naming latencies were shorter in the related condition than in the unrelated condition, which indicates that phoneme selection requires central processing capacity. However, when the distractor words were clearly visible, the facilitatory effect was confined to the picture naming latencies. This pattern arose because the visible related distractor words facilitated phoneme selection but slowed down speech monitoring processes that had to be completed before the response to the tone could be selected. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Communicating emotion: Linking affective prosody and word meaning.

The present study investigated the role of emotional tone of voice in the perception of spoken words. Listeners were presented with words that had either a happy, sad, or neutral meaning. Each word was spoken in a tone of voice (happy, sad, or neutral) that was congruent, incongruent, or neutral with respect to affective meaning, and naming latencies were collected. Across experiments, tone of voice was either blocked or mixed with respect to emotional meaning. The results suggest that emotional tone of voice facilitated linguistic processing of emotional words in an emotion-congruent fashion. These findings suggest that information about emotional tone is used in the processing of linguistic content influencing the recognition and naming of spoken words in an emotion-congruent manner. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Phonological neighbors influence word naming through the least supported phoneme.

Recent research has shown that phonological neighborhood density facilitates naming latencies. In an attempt to extend this work, the authors evaluated the effect of phonological neighborhood distribution by comparing responding to words that consisted of 3 phonemes but differed in the number of phoneme positions that could be changed to form a neighbor (i.e., 2 vs. 3 positions). The results revealed that words in which all 3 positions could be changed to form a neighbor were named more rapidly than were words in which only 2 positions could be changed. The results show that this effect occurs due to a difference between the 2 groups of words in terms of their least supported phoneme (i.e., the phoneme position within a word with which the fewest neighbors overlap). The authors show that differences in terms of the number of neighbors for the least supported phoneme can also explain past research that indicates an effect of phonological neighborhood density on naming. The authors explain the results of this research using the dual-route cascaded model of reading aloud. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Pseudohomophone effects and models of word recognition.

Two experiments examined factors that influence processing of pseudohomophones (nonwords such as brane or joak, which sound like words) and nonpseudohomophones (such as brone or joap, which do not sound like words). In Experiment 1, pseudohomophones yielded faster naming latencies and slower lexical-decision latencies than did nonpseudohomophones, replicating results of R. S. McCann and D. Besner (1987) and R. S. McCann, D. Besner, and E. Davelaar (1988). The magnitude of effect was related to subjects' speed in lexical decision but not naming. In Experiment 2, both immediate and delayed naming conditions were used. There was again a significant pseudohomophone effect that did not change in magnitude across conditions. These results indicate that pseudohomophone effects in the lexical-decision and naming tasks have different bases. In lexical decision, they reflect the pseudohomophone's activation of phonological and semantic information associated with words. In naming, they reflect differences in ease of articulating familiar versus unfamiliar pronunciations. Implications of these results concerning models of word recognition are discussed… (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ambiguity and synonymy effects in lexical decision, naming, and semantic categorization tasks: Interactions between orthography, phonology, and semantics.

In this article, ambiguity and synonymy effects were examined in lexical decision, naming, and semantic categorization tasks. Whereas the typical ambiguity advantage was observed in lexical decision and naming, an ambiguity disadvantage was observed in semantic categorization. In addition, a synonymy effect (slower latencies for words with many synonyms than for words with few synonyms) was observed in lexical decision and naming but not in semantic categorization. These results suggest that (a) an ambiguity disadvantage arises only when a task requires semantic processing, (b) the ambiguity advantage and the synonymy disadvantage in lexical decision and naming are due to semantic feedback, and (c) these effects are determined by the nature of the feedback relationships from semantics to orthography and phonology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Lexical characteristics of words used in emotional Stroop experiments.

Validity of the emotional Stroop task hinges on equivalence between the emotion and the control words in terms of lexical features related to word recognition. The authors evaluated the lexical features of 1,033 words used in 32 published emotional Stroop studies. Emotion words were significantly lower in frequency of use, longer in length, and had smaller orthographic neighborhoods than words used as controls. These lexical features contribute to slower word recognition and hence are likely to contribute to delayed latencies in color naming. The often-replicated slowdown in color naming of emotion words may be due, in part, to lexical differences between the emotion and control words used in the majority of such studies to date. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effect of age of acquisition on speed and accuracy of naming famous faces

Three experiments examined whether famous faces would be affected by the age at which knowledge of the face was first acquired (AoA). Using a multiple regression design, Experiment 1 showed that rated familiarity and AoA were significant predictors of the time required to name pictures of celebrities' faces and the accuracy of producing their names. Experiment 2 replicated an effect of AoA using a factorial design in which other attributes of the celebrities were matched. In both Experiments 1 and 2, several ratings had been collected from participants before naming latency data were collected. Experiment 3 investigated the accuracy and latency of naming celebrities without any prior exposure to the stimuli. An advantage for naming early acquired celebrities was observed even on the first presentation. The participants named the same celebrities in three subsequent presentations of the stimuli. The effect of AoA was not significant on the fourth presentation. The implications of these results for models of face naming and directions for future research are discussed.     

Automatic vigilance for negative words is categorical and general.

With other factors controlled, negative words elicit slower lexical decisions and naming than positive words (Estes & Adelman, 2008; see record 2008-09984-001). Moreover, this marked difference in responding to negative words and to positive words (i.e., between-category discontinuity) was accompanied by relatively uniform responding among negative words (i.e., within-category equivalence), thus suggesting a categorical model of automatic vigilance. Larsen, Mercer, Balota, and Strube (this issue; see record 2008-09984-002) corroborated our observation that valence predicts lexical decision and word naming latencies. However, on the basis of an interaction between linear arousal and linear valence, they claim that automatic vigilance does not occur among arousing stimuli and they purport to reject the categorical model. Here we show that (a) this interaction is logically irrelevant to whether automatic vigilance is categorical; (b) the linear interaction is statistically consistent with the categorical model; (c) the interaction is not observed within the categorical model; and (d) despite having 5 fewer parameters, the categorical model predicts word recognition times as well as the interaction model. Thus, automatic vigilance is categorical and generalizes across levels of arousal. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Investigating the Effects of a Set of Intercorrelated Variables on Eye Fixation Durations in Reading.

The present experiment investigated the influence of 5 intercorrelated variables on word recognition using a multiple regression analysis. The 5 variables were word frequency, subjective familiarity, word length, concreteness, and age of acquisition (AoA). Target words were embedded in sentences and eye tracking methodology was used to investigate the predictive power of these variables. All 5 variables were found to influence reading time. However, the time course of these variables differed. Both word frequency and familiarity showed an early but lasting influence on eye fixation durations. Word length only significantly predicted fixation durations after refixations on the target words were taken into account. This is the 1st experiment to demonstrate concreteness and AoA effects on eye fixations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Initial phoneme versus whole-word criterion to initiate pronunciation: Evidence based on response latency and initial phoneme duration.

Undergraduates participated in 4 speeded naming experiments investigating 2 criteria to initiate articulation–initial phoneme (IP) or whole word (WW). These criteria make different response latency and IP duration predictions for words with regular vs irregular vowel pronunciations (e.g., "pump" vs "pint"). The EP criterion predicts no latency differences but longer IP durations for irregulars, whereas the WW criterion predicts no EP duration differences but longer latencies for irregulars. The latencies and IP durations of words beginning with plosives are measured (a) indirectly by exploiting the conflation of latency and EP duration in the standard naming task and (b) directly by determining when closure begins and ends in the postvocalic naming task (participants say "uuhhh" until responding). Results support both criteria: Response latencies and IP durations are longer for irregular words compared with regular words. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The cognate facilitation effect: Implications for models of lexical access.

Do nonselected lexical nodes activate their phonological information? Catalan-Spanish bilinguals were asked to name (a) pictures whose names are cognates, in the 2 languages (words that are phonologically similar in the 2 languages) and (b) pictures whose names are noncognates in the 2 languages. If nonselected lexical nodes are phonologically encoded, naming latencies should be shorter for cognate words, and because the cognate status of words is only meaningful for bilingual speakers, this difference should disappear when testing monolingual speakers. The results of Experiment 1 fully supported these predictions. In Experiment 2, the difference between cognate and noncognate words was larger when naming in the nondominant language than when naming in the dominant language. The results of the 2 experiments are interpreted as providing support to cascaded activation models of lexical access. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Imageability effects in word naming: An individual differences analysis.

The present research was designed to extend research by Strain et al (1995) who found that imageability facilitates naming of low-frequency irregular words. The authors hypothesized that the impact of imageability on naming performance will vary with phonological reading ability. For participants who score high in phonological reading ability, the effect of imageability should be seen primarily on naming of low-frequency exception words where the orthography-to-phonology mappings are not strong. For participants who score low in phonological reading ability, the mapping of orthography onto phonology is presumably inefficient for all types of low-frequency words. Accordingly, for these participants, it was predicted that imageability would affect naming of both exception and regular words. 90 college students served as Ss. Exp 1 shows that the impact of imageability on word naming varies with phonological coding skill. In Exp 2, the effect of imageability on naming low-frequency irregular words was shown to occur across an extended set of items. Together, the present findings support the notion that semantics may play a role in phonological coding when the mappings between orthography and phonology are weak. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)