The effects of thematic relations on picture naming abilities across the lifespan

ABSTRACT

A picture–word interference paradigm tracked patterns of activation during picture naming in 87 individuals (age range 17–80 years old). Distractor words were presented at stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) of −200, −100, and 0 ms bearing a has a-, location, or no relationship to the picture. Analyses of group naming reaction times revealed significant facilitation effects for both semantic relation types for all age groups. Analyses of temporal patterns of activation revealed significant effects primarily at SOAs of −200 and −100 ms. These findings provide evidence that both thematic relations are particularly salient in how semantic knowledge is organized, and that the patterns of effects from these semantic relations remain the same as one ages.

KEYWORDS:

• Aging
• picture naming
• thematic relations
• picture–word interference
• semantic facilitation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The uneven number of participants between the young-aged group and the other two groups was due to a mis-numbering of the young-aged participants as they were entered in the study. Consequently, it was thought that 30 young-aged participants had been recruited when in fact only 27 had.