Age-related effects in compound production: Evidence from a double-object picture naming task

Abstract

This study investigated effects of healthy ageing and of non-verbal attentional control on speech production. Young and older speakers participated in a picture-word interference (PWI) task with compound targets. To increase the processing load, the two pictures of the compounds’ constituents were presented side-by-side for spoken naming (e.g., a picture of a sun + a picture of a flower to be named with sunflower). Written distractors either corresponded to the first or second constituent ( sun or flower → sunflower), or were semantically related either to the first constituent of the target ( moon → sunflower) or to the second constituent/whole word ( tulip → sunflower). Morpho-phonological facilitation was obtained for both constituents, whereas semantic interference was restricted to first-constituent-related semantic distractors. Furthermore, a trend towards facilitation was obtained for distractors that were semantically related to the whole word. Older speakers were slower and produced more errors than young speakers. While morphological effects of first-constituent distractors were stronger for the elderly, the semantic effects were not affected by age. Non-verbal attentional control processes, measured in the Simon task, significantly contributed to morpho-phonological priming in the elderly, but they did not affect semantic interference or semantic facilitation. With a picture naming task that increases the semantic and lexical processing load, we corroborate earlier evidence that word-finding difficulties in the elderly result from deficient phonological encoding, whereas lexical-semantic and morpho-phonological representations remain stable with age.

Aging affects steaks more than knives: Evidence that the processing of words related to motor skills is relatively spared in aging

“…While many studies have also reported agerelated decreases in accuracy rates, the picture is less uniform than for RTs. Accuracy declines are found most reliably in tasks tapping word recall from meaning (e.g., naming from pictures or definitions, or semantic fluency; Au et al, 1995;Bowles & Poon, 1985;Brickman et al, 2005;Burke & Shafto, 2008;Connor, Spiro, Obler, & Albert, 2004;Gollan, Montoya, Cera, & Sandoval, 2008;Hodgson & Ellis, 1998;Lorenz, Regel, Zwitserlood, & Abdel Rahman, 2018;Lorenz, Zwitserlood, Regel, & Abdel Rahman, 2019;Morrison, Hirsh, & Duggan, 2002;Mortensen et al, 2006;Newman & German, 2005;Nicholas, Obler, Albert, & Goodglass, 1985;Nicholas, Obler, Au, & Albert, 1996;Shafto, Burke, Stamatakis, Tam, & Tyler, 2007). In contrast, meaning-based recognition tasks (e.g., word-picture matching ;Facal, Juncos-Rabadán, Rodríguez, & Pereiro, 2012;Feyereisen et al, 1998;Uttl, 2002;Verhaeghen, 2003) and form-based recall or recognition tasks (e.g., pronunciation, lexical decision) usually show no age-related declines in accuracy or even accuracy increases (Allen, Bucur, Grabbe, Work, & Madden, 2011;Allen, Madden, & Crozier, 1991;Allen, Madden, Weber, & Groth, 1993;Balota et al, 2004;Balota & Ferraro, 1996;Bowles & Poon, 1981Cohen-Shikora & Balota, 2016;Ratcliff, Thapar, Gomez, & McKoon, 2004;Reifegerste et al, 2019;Robert & Mathey, 2007;Tainturier, Tremblay, & Lecours, 1992).…”

On the lexical representation(s) of compounds: A continuous picture naming study.

“…Our participants might therefore have noticed the morphological structure of the compounds, particularly when presented after the simple words, and might have processed their constituents more consciously. Previous research has shown that awareness of the constituents leads to different processing of lexicalized compounds, rendering the constituent representations more salient and thus more highly activated (e.g., Lorenz et al, 2019). To test this idea, we ran an analysis including the order in which participants named the two word-type conditions as factor.…”

Are Faster Participants Always Faster? Assessing Reliability of Participants’ Mean Response Speed in Picture Naming

“…For example, correlations between measures of sustained attention and picture naming speed have been reported (Jongman, 2017;. Other studies have observed relationships between working memory measures and picture naming latencies (Piai & Roelofs, 2013;Shao, Roelofs, & Meyer, 2012; but see Klaus & Schriefers, 2018), and a few studies have found that inhibition skills are related to picture naming speed (Lorenz, Zwitserlood, Regel, & Abdel Rahman, 2019;Shao, Meyer, & Roelofs, 2013;Sikora, Roelofs, Hermans, & Knoors, 2016).…”