Determinants of picture naming times in Icelandic

Abstract

Numerous studies have found that word frequency has a significant effect on the time it takes to name an object or read a word. Recently, claims have been made that this frequency effect is perhaps more correctly interpreted as an age of acquisition effect. This paper reports an experiment in which naming times in Icelandic for 175 stimuli from the Snodgrass and Vanderwart picture set were determined. A multiple regression analysis of naming times against a number of independent factors showed that objective age of acquisition was the strongest predictor of naming time, with familiarity and name agreement also showing a significant effect. The effect of word frequency was, however, not significant. Possible reasons for this are discussed.

Predictors of timed picture naming in Chinese

“…Results from both experiments show clearly that name agreement, rated familiarity, and AoA have the greatest impact on timed picture naming in Putonghua. Our results are compatible with studies in American English (Snodgrass & Yuditsky, 1996), British English (Ellis & Morrison, 1998), Dutch (Severens et al, 2005), French (Alario et al, 2004), Icelandic (Pind & Tryggvadottir, 2002), Italian (Dell'Acqua et al, 2000), and Spanish (Cuetos et al, 1999). Indeed, AoA and name agreement have significant independent effects on picture naming latency in every language studied, and all studies that include these variables report significant effects on picture naming latency (this was noted by Alario et al, 2004).…”

“…This is an estimate of the age at which the name of an object is learned, measured with subjective or objective values. Many studies report effects of subjective AoA on picture naming using retrospective adult rated estimates (Carroll & White, 1973;Gilhooly & Gilhooly, 1979;Morrison, Ellis, & Quinlan, 1992) and some studies also report effects of objective AoA-based on children's naming performance-on picture naming (Pind & Tryggvadottir, 2002). Morrison, Chappell, and Ellis (1997) observed a high correlation between rated and objective measures of AoA, and Ellis and Morrison (1998) found that both measures predict adult naming in their own study and in data published by Barry et al (1997) and Snodgrass and Yuditsky (1996).…”

“…Up until the late 1990s, research on the key factors affecting picture naming speed was limited to that done in English. However, there has been a steady increase in studies investigating timed picture naming in other languages including Dutch (Jescheniak & Levelt, 1994;Severens, Van Lommel, Ratinckx, & Hartsuiker, 2005), French (Alario et al, 2004;Bonin, Chalard, Méot, & Fayol, 2002;Bonin, Peereman, Malardier, Méot, & Chalard, 2003;Chalard, Bonin, Méot, Boyer, & Fayol, 2003;Kremin, Hamerel, Dordain, De Wilde, & Perrier, 2000;Schwitter, Boyer, Méot, Bonin, & Laganaro, 2004), Icelandic (Pind & Tryggvadottir, 2002), Italian (Dell'Acqua, Lotto, & Job, 2000), Japanese (Nishimoto, Miyawaki, Ueda, Une, & Takahashi, 2005), and Spanish (Cuetos, Ellis, & Alvarez, 1999;Sanfeliu & Fernandez, 1996). All of these studies investigate naming of objects using line drawings first published by Snodgrass and Vanderwart (1980) and locally collected normative data.…”

“…Many studies also find that frequency of exposure to the names of objects has a reliable effect on picture naming (Alario et al, 2004;Barry et al, 1997;Bates et al, 2003;Cuetos et al, 1999;Ellis & Morrison, 1998;Snodgrass & Yuditsky, 1996;Székely et al, 2004; though see Bonin et al, 2002;Dell'Acqua et al, 2000;Pind & Tryggvadottir, 2002). Word frequency is typically estimated using printed frequency counts based on text corpora, although subjective ratings of word familiarity can be used to estimate spoken word frequency (Gernsbacher, 1984).…”

“…Studies using multiple regression report that subjective and objective measures of AoA have a significant effect on picture naming independent of printed-word frequency and rated familiarity in English (Barry et al, 1997;Bates et al, 2003;Ellis & Morrison, 1998;Snodgrass & Yuditsky, 1996), French (Alario et al, 2004;Bonin et al, 2002;Bonin et al, 2003), Icelandic (Pind & Tryggvadottir, 2002), Italian (Dell'Acqua et al, 2000), and Spanish (Cuetos et al, 1999; see also Pérez & Navalón, 2005). Zevin and Seidenberg (2004) also raised concerns about use of objective measures of AoA to predict naming times.…”