Age of acquisition effects on action naming in progressive fluent aphasia

Abstract

Several studies report effects of the age of acquisition of a word (AoA) on object (noun) naming in aphasia (Hirsh & Ellis, 1994; Hirsh & Funnell, 1995). These reports include studies of patients with dementia of the Alzheimer’s type and progressive fluent aphasia or semantic dementia (Kremin et al., 2001; Lambon Ralph, Graham, Ellis, & Hodges, 1998; Ukita, Abe, & Yamada, 1999). Recently, there has been interest in investigating AoA effects on naming of action pictures (verbs). Using multiple regression methods, three studies report independent effects of AoA on naming in non-aphasic speakers. Morrison, Hirsh, and Duggan (2003) asked adults to name pictures depicting an action and then performed a simultaneous multiple regression on naming latency for each picture. They found AoA and also a measure of name agreement predicted performance. They also asked participants to name the verbs used in action pictures presented visually and found that AoA was the only significant predictor of verb naming latency. Bogka et al. (2003) compared the effect of AoA on naming pictures of objects and actions with English and Greek speakers. They found significant effects of AoA on object and action naming in both languages that were independent of correlated variables such as imageability and visual complexity. Schwier, Boyer, Meot, Bonin, and Laganaro (2004) also reported effects of AoA, name agreement, and image agreement on …