Category specificity in the naming of natural and man-made objects: Normative data from adults and children

McKenna, Pat; Parry, Rhonwen

doi:10.1080/09602019408401461

Cited by 63 publications

(53 citation statements)

References 21 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Recent studies both with healthy participants and with patients have proposed an interaction between domain and sex of participants on picture naming tasks: men showing a better performance with some nonliving subcategories -generally, tools -and women with some living subcategories -commonly, fruits and vegetables (Barbarotto et al, 2002;Capitani et al, 1999;Laiacona et al, 1998;Laws, 1999Laws, , 2004McKenna and Parry, 1994). Overall, our results revealed no significant sex differences in the ability to generate items; however, some intriguing sex differences emerged across age groups.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 32%

“…Laws, 1999Laws, , 2004. This has led some authors to propose the existence of a sex specialization in the processing of some semantic subcategories (Barbarotto et al, 2002;Capitani et al, 1999;Laiacona et al, 2005;Laws, 1999Laws, , 2004McKenna and Parry, 1994;Moreno-Martínez et al, 2007). Nevertheless, in a large fluency study, Marra et al (2007) reported better furniture fluency in elderly females and female AD patients, and better bird fluency in elderly males, but not in male AD patients.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The impact of dementia, age and sex on category fluency: Greater deficits in women with Alzheimer's disease

Moreno-Martínez¹,

Laws

Schulz

2008

Cortex

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

AgingCategory specific Semantics Sex differences APOE a b s t r a c t A category specific effect in naming tasks has been reported in patients with Alzheimer's dementia. Nonetheless, naming tasks are frequently affected by methodological problems, e.g. ceiling effects for controls and ''nuisance variables'' that may confound results.Semantic fluency tasks could help to address some of these methodological difficulties, because they are not prone to producing ceiling effects and are less influenced by nuisance variables. One hundred and thirty-three participants (61 patients with probable AD; and 72 controls: 36 young and 36 elderly) were evaluated with semantic fluency tasks in 14 semantic categories. Category fluency was affected both by dementia and by age: while in nonliving-thing categories there were differences among the three groups, in living thing categories larger lexical categories produced bigger differences among groups. Sex differences in fluency emerged, but these were moderated both by age and by pathology. In particular, fluency was smaller in female than male Alzheimer patients for almost every subcategory.

show abstract

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 32%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of dementia, age and sex on category fluency: Greater deficits in women with Alzheimer's disease

Moreno-Martínez¹,

Laws

Schulz

2008

Cortex

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The presence of a considerable category effect in neurologically normal participants may well have been "hidden" by ceiling effects in the control data of previous studies. Indeed, the presence of a normal category advantage (whether living or nonliving) accords with recent findings in healthy participants (Brousseau & Buchanan, 2004;Coppens & Frisinger, 2005;Filliter, McMullen, & Westwood, 2004;Låg, 2005;Låg, Hveem, Ruud, & Laeng, 2006;Laws, 1999Laws, , 2000Laws & Hunter, 2006;Laws & Neve, 1999;Laws, Leeson, & Gale, 2002b;Lloyd-Jones & Luckhurst, 2002;McKenna & Parry, 1994). With the recent accumulation of studies documenting category effects in healthy participants, it is pertinent to ask whether, and indeed how, extant models of category specificity incorporate the notion of category effects in the healthy brain.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 81%

The naming profile in Alzheimer patients parallels that of elderly controls

Gale

Irvine

Laws

et al. 2009

Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Controversy exists as to whether semantic disruption in Alzheimer's disease (AD) systematically impairs the naming of living things. Moreover, little is known about performance across more specific subcategories. We investigated picture naming in 28 AD patients and 24 controls. To deal with nonnormal distributions, we created 1,000 bootstrap hierarchical regressions and determined which variables (the "nuisance" variables familiarity, word frequency, age of acquisition and visual complexity; category; and control naming) best predicted AD patient naming. Nuisance variables combined, control naming, and category uniquely accounted for 39%, 36%, and 3% of patient naming variance, respectively. Finally, analysis of the AD naming profile across the 10 subcategories mirrored that of controls. Taken together, these findings indicate that while AD naming is, of course, quantitatively worse than that of controls, it does not qualitatively differ-that is, it is an exaggerated normal profile.

show abstract

“…These asymmetries are documented by a sizable body of data, obtained both in normal subjects and in brain-damaged patients. For instance, significant gender-related asymmetries about these categories have been observed in normal subjects gathering normative naming data from adults and children [15,32], evaluating familiarity ratings for various categories [1] and studying the age of acquisition of common names [3,15]. Similar asymmetries have been found on speed-ed naming [26] and identification [27] tasks, on name generation tasks [29], on semantic fluency tasks [7,8,31], on object decision tasks [4] and using the semantic priming paradigm [5].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Asymmetries in Gender-Related Familiarity with Different Semantic Categories. Data from Normal Adults

Gainotti

Spinelli

Scaricamazza

et al. 2013

Behavioural Neurology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. The mechanisms subsuming the brain organization of categories and the corresponding gender related asymmetries are controversial. Some authors believe that the brain organization of categories is innate, whereas other authors maintain that it is shaped by experience. According to these interpretations, gender-related asymmetries should respectively be inborn or result from the influence of social roles. In a previous study, assessing the familiarity of young students with different 'biological' and 'artefact' categories, we had observed no gender-related difference on any of these categories. Since these data could be due to the fact that our students belonged to a generation in which the traditional social roles have almost completely disappeared, we predicted that gender-related asymmetries should be found in older men and women. The familiarity of young and elderly men and women with various semantic categories was, therefore, studied presenting in the verbal and pictorial modality different kinds of living and artefact categories. Results confirmed the hypothesis, because elderly women showed a greater familiarity for flowers and elderly men for animals. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis assuming that gender-related asymmetries for different semantic categories is due to the influence of gender-related social roles.

show abstract

Category specificity in the naming of natural and man-made objects: Normative data from adults and children

Cited by 63 publications

References 21 publications

The impact of dementia, age and sex on category fluency: Greater deficits in women with Alzheimer's disease

The impact of dementia, age and sex on category fluency: Greater deficits in women with Alzheimer's disease

The naming profile in Alzheimer patients parallels that of elderly controls

Asymmetries in Gender-Related Familiarity with Different Semantic Categories. Data from Normal Adults

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About