Sources of Disagreement in Object Naming

Abstract

Two experiments examined the processing of objects with low name agreement. Experiment I compared naming latencies for objects with three different types of name disagreement to those for matched control objects with very high name agreement. Objects with low name agreement due to abbreviations (e.g. phone) were named no more slowly than were control objects. Objects with multiple names (e.g. couch, sofa, settee) and objects often given incorrect names (e.g. spider for ant) took longer to name correctly than did matched controls. These results were confirmed in a second naming experiment using a revised set of high-name-agreement control stimuli. In Experiment 2, subjects carried out an object decision task using the revised stimulus set. Subjects could recognize objects with multiple names as quickly as those with high name agreement. Objects often given incorrect names were recognized by subjects more slowly than were high-agreement matched stimuli. The pattern of data suggests that the delay in naming latency due to the availability of more than one correct name arises after structural recognition. In contrast, the slowed naming of objects often misnamed would seem to originate from difficulties encountered at or before the structural stage of recognition.

Electrophysiological evidence that inhibition supports lexical selection in picture naming

“…This held for object and action pictures alike. NA effects on RTs have been observed in several earlier studies (e.g., Alario and Ferrand, 1999;Barry et al, 1997;Vitkovitch and Tyrrell, 1995). As discussed in Section 1, pictures can differ in NA for a number of reasons.…”

“…As discussed in Section 1, pictures can differ in NA for a number of reasons. Specifically, low NA may arise because speakers misidentify objects, or use either abbreviations or full forms, or because they need to select among several appropriate names activated by the depicted objects (Vitkovitch and Tyrrell, 1995). Since the participants in our study were thoroughly familiarized with the pictures before the main experiment, the NA effect in our study likely arose because the selection of the picture names was hindered by the simultaneous activation of several candidate names in the low NA condition.…”

“…As Vitkovitch and Tyrrell (1995), also see Cheng et al (2010), have pointed out, low NA may have at least three different causes: First, speakers may use multiple names to refer to the same object, as already discussed; second, they may use abbreviations or full forms (e.g., phone or telephone); and third, they may misidentify objects (e.g., calling a line drawing of celery rhubarb, Chinese leaves, cabbage, or marrow). The present study concerned NA effects of the first type, where multiple co-activated lexical concepts and names are simultaneously available (e.g., Johnson et al, 1996).…”

“…During lexical selection, speakers have to select one of the activated lemmas. NA has consistently been shown to affect object and action naming above and beyond variables such as frequency and age of acquisition (e.g., Alario and Ferrand, 1999;Barry et al, 1997;Lachman et al, 1974;Snodgrass and Yuditsky, 1996;Shao et al, 2014;Vitkovitch and Tyrrell, 1995): Pictures that elicit many different names (i.e., have low NA) are named more slowly than pictures with a single dominant name (i.e., have high NA).…”

The word frequency effect in picture naming: Contrasting two hypotheses using homonym pictures

“…The fact that many Hom-LF items had near-synonyms could by itself slow down the naming of those Hom-LF pictures, compared to Hom-HF pictures. Several studies showed that objects with low name agreement take longer to name than objects with high name agreement (Lachman, 1973;Lachman, Shaffer, & Hennrikus, 1974;Vitkovitch & Tyrell, 1995). In the case of the Hom-LF items, the situation is more extreme because the Hom-LF names had more dominant counterparts (e.g., slot in the meaning of ''castle'' has a higher frequency counterpart kasteel with a very similar meaning).…”