Age of acquisition and typicality effects in three object processing tasks

Abstract

Eight experiments are reported that investigate the effects of age of acquisition (AoA) and typicality in three object processing tasks—object naming, object decision, and category verification. AoA influenced object naming under standard, immediate naming conditions and when participants had been pretrained on the pictures and their names, but there was no effect in a delayed naming task (Experiments 1, 5, and 6). Late acquired items of high typicality were named faster than those of low typicality when naming was unprimed but not when primed by pre-exposure to the items. Object decision speed (Is this a real object or not?) was faster to early than to late acquired items (Experiments 2, 3, and 7). That effect was reduced but not eliminated by articulatory suppression (Experiment 7). RTs were also faster to typical than to atypical items. That effect also interacted with AoA but was unaffected by suppression (Experiment 7). Category verification (Is this object a member of a named category?) showed an effect of AoA on positive but not negative decisions when typicality was not controlled (Experiment 4) but that effect disappeared once AoA was controlled (Experiment 8). Category verification was faster for typical than atypical items (Experiment 8). The findings are discussed in terms of theories of the influence of AoA and typicality on object recognition and naming.

This research was conducted while Selina Holmes was a postgraduate student at the University of York on a University of York Studentship sponsored by Unilever Research.

This research was conducted while Selina Holmes was a postgraduate student at the University of York on a University of York Studentship sponsored by Unilever Research.

Notes

This research was conducted while Selina Holmes was a postgraduate student at the University of York on a University of York Studentship sponsored by Unilever Research.

²There is also the complication that the interaction between AoA and typicality was different in the object decision task (greater effect of typicality for early items) compared with object naming (greater effect of typicality for late items). We would prefer to wait for confirmation that both interactions replicate with different item sets before attempting an explanation.

³Vitkovitch and Tyrrell (1995) suggested that AoA effects in their object decision task were due to differences in the speed with which structural representations could be accessed.