Distinct Effects of Lexical and Semantic Competition during Picture Naming in Younger Adults, Older Adults, and People with Aphasia.

ABSTRACT: Producing a word requires selecting among a set of similar alternatives. When many semantically related items become activated, the difficulty of the selection process is increased. Experiment 1 tested naming of items with either multiple synonymous labels ("Alternate Names," e.g., gift/present) or closely semantically related but non-equivalent responses ("Near Semantic Neighbors," e.g., jam/jelly). Picture naming was fastest and most accurate for pictures with only one label ("High Name Agreement"), slower and less accurate in the Alternate Names condition, and slowest and least accurate in the Near Semantic Neighbors condition. These results suggest that selection mechanisms in picture naming operate at two distinct levels of processing: selecting between similar but non-equivalent name

SUBMITTER: Britt AE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4937813 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature