The iconicity advantage in sign production: The case of bimodal bilinguals

Recent evidence demonstrates that pictures corresponding to iconic signs are named faster than pictures corresponding to non-iconic signs. The present study investigates the locus of the iconicity advantage in hearing bimodal bilinguals. A naming experiment with iconic and noniconic pictures in Italian Sign Language (LIS) was conducted. Bimodal bilinguals named the pictures either using a noun construction that involved the production of the sign corresponding to the picture or using a marked demonstrative pronoun construction replacing the picture sign. In this last condition, the pictures were colored and participants were instructed to name the pronoun together with the color. The iconicity advantage was reliable in the noun utterance but not in the marked demonstrative pronoun utterance. In a third condition, the colored pictures were presented as distractor stimuli and participants required to name the color. In this last condition, distractor pictures with iconic signs elicited faster naming latencies than non-iconic signs. The results suggest that the advantage of iconic signs in production arises at the level of semantic-tophonological links. In addition, we conclude that bimodal bilinguals and native signers do not differ in terms of the activation flow within the sign production system

The impact of dose on naming accuracy with persons with aphasia

Background: Although aphasia rehabilitation has been shown to be efficacious, many questions remain regarding how best to deliver treatment to maximise functional gains for persons with aphasia. Treatment-delivery variables, such as intensity and dosage, are likely to influence both behavioural and structural changes during anomia treatment. While numerous protocols have concluded that treatment intensity positively impacts functional outcomes, few studies to date have examined the role that dose plays in patient outcomes for anomia treatment. Aims: This study sought to investigate how manipulating dose of repeated confrontation naming within sessions influences naming in persons with aphasia. Repeated practice of confrontation naming, without feedback, was hypothesised to improve trained but not untrained words, to be persistent after withdrawal, and to be sensitive to the number of trials (i.e., dose) within sessions. Methods and Procedures: A single-subject ABA design, with replication across seven participants with aphasia, was used to investigate the influence of repeated confrontation naming attempts on the acquisition and maintenance of trained pictures relative to untrained pictures. Training involved repeated attempts to name pictures, along with repeated exposure to pictures of objects (nouns) and their names, without feedback. The primary independent variable was within session dose; the dependent variable was naming accuracy. Outcomes and Results: Naming accuracy improved for all participants for trained pictures across both acquisition and maintenance phases per visual inspection; such positive effects were not observed for untrained pictures. Effect-size calculations indicate that three of seven participants demonstrated considerable change for trained items, while one of seven participants demonstrated meaningful change for untrained items. The high-dose condition elicited small effect sizes for one participant, and large effect sizes for two of seven participants, while the low-dose condition elicited small and medium effect sizes for two of seven participants. Conclusions: Participants across a variety of aphasia severity levels responded positively to two doses of repeated confrontation naming practice, without feedback, across phases of this naming protocol. Results are in line with principles of neuroplasticity and demonstrate that repeated practice, without feedback, can produce significant and persistent changes in naming ability for some persons with aphasia

The Cumulative Semantic Cost Does Not Reflect Lexical Selection By Competition

The cumulative semantic cost describes a phenomenon in which picture naming latencies increase monotonically with each additional within-category item that is named in a sequence of pictures. Here we test whether the cumulative semantic cost requires the assumption of lexical selection by competition. In Experiment 1 participants named a sequence of pictures, while in Experiment 2 participants named words instead of pictures, preceded by a gender marked determiner. We replicate the basic cumulative semantic cost with pictures (Exp. 1) and show that there is no cumulative semantic cost for word targets (Exp. 2). This pattern was replicated in Experiment 3 in which pictures and words were named along with their gender marked definite determiner, and were intermingled within the same experimental design. In addition, Experiment 3 showed that while picture naming induces a cumulative semantic cost for subsequently named words, word naming does not induce a cumulative semantic cost for subsequently named pictures. These findings suggest that the cumulative semantic cost arises prior to lexical selection and that the effect arises due to incremental changes to the connection weights between semantic and lexical representations.Psycholog

A joint investigation of facilitation and interference effects of semantic and phonological similarityin a continuous naming task

Semantic and phonological similarity effects provide critical constraints on the mechanisms underlying language production. In the present study, we jointly investigated effects of semantic and phonological similarity using the continuous naming task. In the semantic condition, Chinese Mandarin speakers named a list of pictures composed of 12 semantic category sets with 5 items from each semantic category, while in the phonological condition, they named a list of pictures from 12 phonological sets of 5 items sharing a spoken syllable. Related pictures occurred on adjacent trials, or were separated by 2, 4, or 6 unrelated pictures. Similar results were found across the semantic and phonological conditions: naming was facilitated by the directly preceding production of a related picture. For nonconsecutive related responses, naming latency increased linearly as a function of the number of preceding production instances of related pictures. Parallel patterns of facilitation and interference effects arising from semantic and phonological similarity suggest universal principles which govern language production

Name agreement in picture naming: An ERP study

Name agreement is the extent to which different people agree on a name for a particular picture. Previous studies have found that it takes longer to name low name agreement pictures than high name agreement pictures. To examine the effect of name agreement in the online process of picture naming, we compared event-related potentials (ERPs) recorded whilst 19 healthy, native English speakers silently named pictures which had either high or low name agreement. A series of ERP components was examined: P1 approximately 120ms from picture onset, N1 around 170ms, P2 around 220ms, N2 around 290ms, and P3 around 400ms. Additionally, a late time window from 800 to 900ms was considered. Name agreement had an early effect, starting at P1 and possibly resulting from uncertainty of picture identity, and continuing into N2, possibly resulting from alternative names for pictures. These results support the idea that name agreement affects two consecutive processes: first, object recognition, and second, lexical selection and/or phonological encoding

The Effect of Instruction (Rapid Automatic Naming Versus Repeated Read Aloud) on Vocabulary Building for Preschool Children

STUDY ABSTRACT Title The Effect of Instruction (Rapid Automatic Naming Versus Repeated Read Aloud) on Vocabulary Building for Preschool Children Purpose of the Study The purpose of this research was to determine whether using the strategy of rapid automatic naming or repeated read aloud would increase children’s vocabulary development. The study assessed children in an inclusive classroom. The participants were 3 year old students who required specialized instruction and have Individual Education Programs and students who were typically developing. The students were assessed using Individual Growth and Development Indicators (picture naming) to assess which intervention strategy produced more growth in the students achievement in their classroom assessments. Both interventions were found to positively influence students achievement in the area of picture as measured by the Individual Growth and Development Indicators (IGDI’s). The Rapid automatic naming intervention group exhibited a larger increase in pictures named correctly by 1.7 pictures but also showed a larger increase in pictures named incorrectly

Word naming slows picture naming but does not affect cumulative semantic interference

Two experiments are reported which investigate the effect of processing words prior to naming target pictures. In Experiment 1, participants named (read aloud) sequences of five printed prime words and five target pictures from the same semantic category, and also sequences of five prime words from a different unrelated semantic category to the five related target pictures. Picture and words were interleaved, with two unrelated filler stimuli in between prime and target stimuli (i.e. a lag of 3 between primes and targets). Results showed that across the five target picture naming trials (i.e. across ordinal position of picture), picture naming times increased linearly, replicating the cumulative semantic interference (CSI) effect (e.g., Howard, Nickels, Coltheart, & Cole-Virtue, 2006). Related prime words slowed picture naming, replicating the effects found in paired word prime and picture target studies (e.g., Tree & Hirsh, 2003). However, the naming of the five related prime words did not modify the picture naming CSI effect, with this null result converging with findings from a different word and picture design (e.g., Navarrete, Mahon, & Caramazza, 2010). In Experiment 2, participants categorised the prime word stimuli as manmade versus natural, so that words were more fully processed at a conceptual level. The interaction between word prime relatedness and ordinal position of the named target picture was significant. These results are consistent with adjustments at the conceptual level (Belke, 2013; Roelofs, 2018) which last over several trials at least. By contrast, we conclude that the distinct word-to-picture naming interference effect from Experiment 1 must originate outside of the conceptual level and outside of the mappings between semantics and lexical representations. We discuss the results with reference to recent theoretical accounts of the CSI picture naming effect and word naming models

Task irrelevant external cues can influence language selection in voluntary object naming: evidence from Hindi-English bilinguals

We examined if external cues such as other agents’ actions can influence the choice of language during voluntary and cued object naming in bilinguals in three experiments. Hindi– English bilinguals first saw a cartoon waving at a color patch. They were then asked to either name a picture in the language of their choice (voluntary block) or to name in the instructed language (cued block). The colors waved at by the cartoon were also the colors used as language cues (Hindi or English). We compared the influence of the cartoon’s choice of color on naming when speakers had to indicate their choice explicitly before naming (Experiment 1) as opposed to when they named directly on seeing the pictures (Experiment 2 and 3). Results showed that participants chose the language indicated by the cartoon greater number of times (Experiment 1 and 3). Speakers also switched significantly to the language primed by the cartoon greater number of times (Experiment 1 and 2). These results suggest that choices leading to voluntary action, as in the case of object naming can be influenced significantly by external non-linguistic cues. Importantly, these symbolic influences can work even when other agents are merely indicating their choices and are not interlocutors in bilingual communicatio

Investigating the flow of information during speaking: the impact of morpho-phonological, associative, and categorical picture distractors on picture naming

In three experiments, participants named target pictures by means of German compound words (e.g., Gartenstuhl–garden chair), each accompanied by two different distractor pictures (e.g., lawn mower and swimming pool). Targets and distractor pictures were semantically related either associatively (garden chair and lawn mower) or by a shared semantic category (garden chair and wardrobe). Within each type of semantic relation, target and distractor pictures either shared morpho-phonological (word-form) information (Gartenstuhl with Gartenzwerg, garden gnome, and Gartenschlauch, garden hose) or not. A condition with two completely unrelated pictures served as baseline. Target naming was facilitated when distractor and target pictures were morpho-phonologically related. This is clear evidence for the activation of word-form information of distractor pictures. Effects were larger for associatively than for categorically related distractors and targets, which constitute evidence for lexical competition. Mere categorical relatedness, in the absence of morpho-phonological overlap, resulted in null effects (Experiments 1 and 2), and only speeded target naming when effects reflect only conceptual, but not lexical processing (Experiment 3). Given that distractor pictures activate their word forms, the data cannot be easily reconciled with discrete serial models. The results fit well with models that allow information to cascade forward from conceptual to word-form levels

Noun and verb naming: Phonological facilitation effects on naming latencies and viewing times in agrammatic vs. anomic aphasia

Phonological facilitation effects during noun and verb naming were examined in groups of agrammatic and anomic aphasic individuals and healthy controls. Phonologically related vs. unrelated auditory primes were presented simultaneously with target pictures to be named while naming latencies and eye-fixations (viewing times) were measured. Controls showed reduced naming latencies and viewing times following phonologically related, compared to unrelated, primes for both nouns and verbs. Agrammatic participants showed phonological facilitation for verb, but not noun naming; whereas, anomic participants showed the opposite pattern, suggesting phonological facilitation effects interact with differential lexical deficits in aphasia