Presentation

Sara Pillay¹, Cassidy Bertagnoli², Jena Burton², Sabine Heuer²; ¹Medical College of Wisconsin, ²University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Introduction: Image naming paradigms have been broadly utilized to better understand the linguistic processes underpinning theories of lexical retrieval and to explore linguistic deficits in people with neurologic communication disorders such as aphasia and dementia. These disorders become more common with increasing age (Chen, Lin, & Chen, 2009; Engelter et al., 2006; Kelly-Hayes, 2010). However, lexical retrieval is affected in both, healthy aging adults (Au et al., 1995; Connor, Spiro, Obler & Albert, 2004; Feyereisen, 1997; Mortensen, Meyer, & Humphrey, 2006; Spieler & Balota, 2000) and people with neurologic disorders (Adlam et al., 2006; Bayles, Tomoeda, & Trosset, 1990, Goodglass & Wingfield, 1997, Raymer, 2005). Therefore, norms for image naming in older adults are important for defining what constitutes normal performances at different age cohorts, but also to refine markers for impaired word finding. To date, norms for image naming in older adults are lacking (Souza, Garrido, & Carmo, 2020). The purpose of this study is to provide norms for older adults free of neurologic impairments on a freely available, large set of photographs of everyday objects, normed for a large number of normative variables on younger adults, the Bank of Standardized Stimuli (BOSS, Brodeur, Dionne-Dostie, Montreuil, & Lepage, 2010; Brodeur, Guérard, & Bouras, 2014). Methods: Twenty-three participants were recruited. All are native speakers of English, at least 50 years old, and are self-reportedly free of neurologic deficits. Each participant was presented with 600 photographs of common objects derived from the BOSS on a computer screen and was asked to name each image as quickly and accurately as possible. Accuracy and response times were recorded and analyzed. The normative variables modal name, name agreement and name accuracy were computed. Results: Preliminary results revealed mean naming accuracy across participants at 84.49%. The analysis for modal name agreement indicated an overall 80 % agreement across the 600 stimuli. Our long-term goal is to recruit a total of 80 participants between the ages of 40-80. In addition to establishing norms for older adults on the BOSS, we aim to establish an index of image naming difficulty based on the normative variables (i.e. reaction time, % modal name agreement). This index will be valuable for stimulus selection in studies utilizing image-naming paradigms with older individuals with and without neurologic deficits. Lastly, we plan to analyze data for across age groups to characterize changes in naming abilities with increase in age. Conclusions: Image naming performance is commonly studied in people with and without neurological deficits. Norms across the age range for image naming are a critical prerequisite for behavioral research that tackles theoretical as well as clinical questions.

Topic Areas: Language Therapy, Methods