Chloe Steber and Tracy Izard, “Lawn Ornament Shooters, Money Pouch, and Light Candles: Discrepancies in Photographic Image Naming”
Mentor: Sabine Heuer, Rehabilitation Sciences & Technology
Poster #1

Image naming tasks are used to explore word finding processes. More normed image sets utilize photographs instead of line drawings (Souza et al., 2020). Photographs are more likely to elicit multiple names than line drawings due to richer details (Brodeur et al., 2010, Moreno-Martinez, Montoro & Laws, 2011). Further, images with high name agreement are elicited faster than those with low name agreement, specifically for low agreement items with multiple names (Alario et al., 2004; Madden, Sale, & Robinson, 2019). Norms for modal and alternative names for photographic stimuli are needed. Age-related lexical retrieval changes might be reflected in subtle changes in alternative names. The purpose of this study is to provide norms for name agreement and disagreement for older adults on a large set of photographs of everyday objects, the Bank of Standardized Stimuli (BOSS). Eighty native speakers of English, 40-80 years old, and free of neurologic deficits were recruited. Each participant was presented with 600 BOSS photographs and was asked to name each image as quickly and accurately as possible. The responses were transcribed and accuracy was recorded. Preliminary results revealed a mean accuracy of 83 % and a modal name agreement of 77% across the 600 stimuli. A fine-grained coding analysis of correct responses into subordinate (bird-sea gull), synonyms (mobile phone-cell phone), and supraordinate categories (potato peeler – peeler), and of incorrect responses into misconceptions (kiwi –coconut), false responses (asparagus – artichoke) and idiosyncratic responses (lawn ornament shooter – toy soldier) is ongoing. Norms across the age range for image naming provide insight into changes and stability of lexical retrieval processes with age to better characterize normal and impaired performance. The disagreement norms will provide valuable insight into the sources of name disagreement and allow for a richer description of visual stimuli commonly used in psycholinguistic research.