The effects of age of acquisition on an object classification task

Abstract

The age at which an item is acquired (age of acquisition; AoA) affects naming latencies for words, objects, and faces. Ellis and Lambon Ralph (2000) proposed an account of AoA that predicts its effect in any task requiring access to stored information. AoA effects have been found in non-naming tasks for faces (e.g., Lewis, 1999) and words (e.g., Brysbaert, van Wijnendaele, & de Deyne, 2000) but not for pictures (e.g., Morrison, Ellis, & Quinlan, 1992). The current study explored the effect of AoA on a manmade/natural picture classification task, but extended previous work by implementing a matched groups design. Early acquired objects were classified significantly more quickly than later acquired objects. Experiment 2 collected naming latencies for the same picture stimuli to allow a comparison of the magnitude of the AoA effect for semantic classification and naming. The AoA effect was significantly greater for the naming task. The implications of these findings in relation to accounts of AoA and its locus of effect are discussed.

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Michael Lewis and an anonymous reviewer for their comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. The work of Robert Johnston is supported by a grant from the Leverhulme Trust (F/00094/AB).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Robert A. Johnston

Jon Catling is supported by a postgraduate studentship from the School of Psychology at the University of Birmingham