Visual-word identification thresholds for the 260 fragmented words of the Snodgrass and Vanderwart pictures in Spanish

Word difficulty varies from language to language; therefore, normative data of verbal stimuli cannot be imported directly from another language. We present mean identification thresholds for the 260 screen-fragmented words corresponding to the total set of Snodgrass and Vanderwart (1980) pictures. Individual words were fragmented in eight levels using Turbo Pascal, and the resulting program was implemented on a PC microcomputer. The words were presented individually to a group of 40 Spanish observers, using a controlled time procedure. An unspecific learning effect was found showing that performance improved due to practice with the task. Finally, of the 11 psycholinguistic variables that previous researchers have shown to affect word identification, only imagery accounted for a significant amount of variance in the threshold values.     

Visual-word recognition thresholds for screen-fragmented names of the Snodgrass and Vanderwart pictures

The set of names corresponding to the pictures from Snodgrass and Vanderwart (1980) were screen fragmented by means of a series of procedures implemented in Microsoft QuickBasic on a Macintosh microcomputer. Words were screen fragmented by deleting blocks of pixels from their images rather than by deleting individual letters. The screen-fragmentation procedure is particularly useful for the present set of words, in which a large proportion of the names of the pictures are short (fewer than five letters). The screen-fragmentation procedure can produce any number of fragmentation levels. In the present implementation, eight levels of fragmented images were produced, to correspond to the eight levels available for the Snodgrass and Vanderwart pictures.     

Naming times for the Snodgrass and Vanderwart pictures

This paper reports the results of two experiments. In the first, voice-key naming times were collected and in the second, keypress naming times were collected for 250 of the Snodgrass and Vanderwart (1980) pictures. The resulting naming times and correct naming rates were well predicted in multiple regression analyses by one or another measure of codability (name or concept agreement) and by age-of-acquisition ratings collected specifically for this study. Voice-key responses appeared to be somewhat more sensitive indicators of naming difficulty, although keypress responses did remarkably well. The Appendix presents the age-of-acquisition ratings, the trimmed vocal and keypress naming times, and the correct naming rates from the two experiments for the 250 pictures.     

Naming times for the Snodgrass and Vanderwart pictures in Spanish

We present new Spanish norms for object familiarity and rated age of acquisition for 140 pictures taken from Snodgrass and Vanderwart (1980), together with data on visual complexity, image agreement, name agreement, word length (in syllables and phonemes), and five measures of word frequency. The pictures were presented to a group of 64 Spanish subjects, and oral naming latencies were recorded. In a multiple regression analysis, age of acquisition, object familiarity, name agreement, word frequency, and word length made significant independent contributions to predicting naming latency.     

Free-association norms for the Spanish names of the Snodgrass and Vanderwart pictures.

The most frequent names in Spanish corresponding to a set of 247 pictures in the Snodgrass and Vanderwart (1980) norms were used as stimuli in a discrete free-association task. A sample of 525 Spanish-speaking participants provided the first word that came to mind for each of the verbal stimuli. Responses were organized according to frequency of production in order to prepare word-association norms for the set of stimuli.     

Free-association norms for the Spanish names of the Snodgrass and Vanderwart pictures

The most frequent names in Spanish corresponding to a set of 247 pictures in the Snodgrass and Vanderwart (1980) norms were used as stimuli in a discrete free-association task. A sample of 525 Spanish-speaking participants provided the first word that came to mind for each of the verbal stimuli. Responses were organized according to frequency of production in order to prepare word-association norms for the set of stimuli.     

Determinants of naming latencies, object comprehension times, and new norms for the Russian standardized set of the colorized version of the Snodgrass and Vanderwart pictures

We report object-naming and object recognition times collected from Russian native speakers for the colorized version of the Snodgrass and Vanderwart (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory 6:174–215, 1980) pictures (Rossion & Pourtois, Perception 33:217–236, 2004). New norms for image variability, body–object interaction [BOI], and subjective frequency collected in Russian, as well as new name agreement scores for the colorized pictures in French, are also reported. In both object-naming and object comprehension times, the name agreement, image agreement, and age-of-acquisition variables made significant independent contributions. Objective word frequency was reliable in object-naming latencies only. The variables of image variability, BOI, and subjective frequency were not significant in either object naming or object comprehension. Finally, imageability was reliable in both tasks. The new norms and object-naming and object recognition times are provided as supplemental materials.     

Imagery ability and the identification of fragmented pictures and words

High and low imagery individuals completed two paper-and-pencil identification tasks involving fragmented pictures and fragmented words. Although a trend was present for spatial measures of imagery ability to correlate more highly with picture than with word identification, high imagers nevertheless surpassed low imagers on both tasks. An interpretation emphasizing the spatial-imaginal demands of both tasks is suggested. Significant correlations between word identification and some verbal measures, as well as self-reported imagery, may have resulted from the differential priming of verbal and imaginal strategies following subtle procedural changes in the two experiments described.     

Icelandic norms for the Snodgrass and Vanderwart (1980) pictures: name and image agreement, familiarity, and age of acquisition

This paper presents Icelandic norms for the widely used pictorial stimuli of Snodgrass and Vanderwart (1980). Norms are presented for name agreement, familiarity, imageability, rated and objective age-of-acquisition (AoA) of vocabulary, and word frequency. The ratings were collected from 103 adult participants while the objective AoA values were collected from 279 children, 2.5-11 years of age. The present norms are in many respects similar to those already collected for other language groups indicating that the stimuli will be useful for further psychological studies in Iceland. The rated AoA values show a high correlation with objective AoA (r = 0.718) thus confirming previous studies conducted with English speaking participants that rated AoA is a relatively valid measure of objective AoA. However, word frequency and familiarity are more closely correlated with rated AoA than with objective AoA indicating that these factors play some role in the ratings. Objective AoA norms are therefore to be preferred in studies of cognitive processes.     

Perceptual closure and object identification: electrophysiological responses to incomplete pictures.

Event-related potentials were recorded during the naming of pictures of concrete objects. The pictures were presented at three levels of completeness: 10, 30, and 60%. The ERP waveforms were evaluated according to the level of picture completeness and the correctness of naming. A negative wave in the latency range of 250-550 ms was significantly more negative when the pictures were more incomplete, regardless of the correctness of response. This N400 wave is proposed as being related to hypotheses about the identity of the object. A late positive wave in the latency range of 550-650 ms followed the negativity, but only when the response was correct. This may reflect the subject's certainty about the perceptual analysis, a verification of the identity of the object. A slow parietal negativity lasting up to 2 sec was largest for the least complete picture. This therefore varied with the perceptual difficulty.     

Russian norms for name agreement,image agreement for the colorized version of the Snodgrass and Vanderwart pictures and age of acquisition,conceptual familiarity,and imageability scores for modal object names

The aim of the present study was to provide Russian normative data for the Snodgrass and Vanderwart (Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 28, 516–536, 1980) colorized pictures (Rossion & Pourtois, Perception, 33, 217–236, 2004). The pictures were standardized on name agreement, image agreement, conceptual familiarity, imageability, and age of acquisition. Objective word frequency and objective visual complexity measures are also provided for the most common names associated with the pictures. Comparative analyses between our results and the norms obtained in other, similar studies are reported. The Russian norms may be downloaded from the Psychonomic Society supplemental archive.     

Naming the Snodgrass and Vanderwart Pictures: Effects of Age of Acquisition, Frequency, and Name Agreement

Independent measures of age of acquisition (AoA), name agreement, and rated object familiarity were obtained from groups of British subjects for all items in the Snodgrass and Vanderwart (1980) picture set with single names. Word frequency measures, both written and spoken, were taken from the Celex database (Centre for Lexical Information, 1993). The line drawings were presented to a separate groupof participants in an object naming task, and vocal naming latencies were recorded. A subset of 195 items was selected for analysis after excluding items with, for example, low name agreement. The major determinants of picture naming speed were the frequency of the name, the interaction between AoA and frequency, and name agreement. (The main effect of the AoA of the name and the effect of the rated image agreement of the picture were also significant on one-tailed tests.) Spoken name frequency affects object naming times mainly for items with later-acquired names.     

The role of imagery-related properties in picture naming: A newly standardized set of 360 pictures for Japanese

Picture naming was investigated primarily to determine its dependence on certain imagery-related variables, with a secondary aim of developing a new set of Japanese norms for 360 pictures. Pictures refined from the original Nishimoto, Miyawaki, Ueda, Une, and Takahashi (Behavior Research Methods 37:398?C416, 2005) set were used. Naming behaviors were measured using four imagery-related measures (imageability, vividness, image agreement, and image variability) and four conventional measures (naming time, name agreement, familiarity, and age of acquisition), as well as a number of other measures (17 total). A simultaneous multiple regression analysis performed on naming times showed that the most reliable predictor was H, a measure of name diversity; two image-related measures (image agreement and vividness) and age of acquisition also contributed substantially to the prediction of naming times. The accuracy of picture naming (measured as name agreement) was predicted by vividness, age of acquisition, familiarity, and image agreement. This suggests that certain processes involving mental imagery play a role in picture naming. The full set of norms and pictures may be downloaded from http://www.psychonomic.org/archive/ or along with the article from http://www.springerlink.com.     

Detection and identification thresholds for consonant-vowel syllables

Detection and identification thresholds were obtained for 6- and 10-year-old normal children and normal adults using five-formant synthesized consonant-vowel ([baHdflrfea]) stimuli. Sixyear-old children were found to have poorer detection than adults, just as they do for pure tones. For the identification task, the slopes of the performance-intensity functions were more shallow for 6-year-old children than for 10-year-olds and adults. Consequently, compared with 10-yearolds and adults, 6-year-old listeners require a greater increase in stimulus intensity above detection threshold to identify these stimuli at a high performance level. The influence of acoustic characteristics of the stimuli on all listeners is also discussed.     

Influences of closure,occlusion, and size on the perception of fragmented pictures

Two experiments examined the ability to recognize a repeated figure in stimuli where only fragments of the figures were presented. Fragments were either closed or open regions presented either with or without an occluder that filled the spaces between the fragments (Experiment 1). Recognition performance was significantly better for open fragments, with or without an occluder, contrary to previous assertions that the occluder is the important factor for recognition. When stimulus size was varied, an occluder hindered recognition performance in the smallest size condition relative to unoccluded stimuli, which were equally easy to recognize across all size conditions (Experiment 2). The size results support the idea of size invariance in object naming. The difficulty in the smallest occluded condition is discussed in terms of differences in global and local processing depending on visual angle and sparsity     

A set of 150 pictures with morphologically complex English compound names: Norms for name agreement,familiarity, image agreement,and visual complexity

We present a set of 150 pictures with morphologically complex English compound names. The pictures were collected from various sources and were standardized to appear as grayscale line drawings of a fixed size. All the compounds had two constituents and were primarily of the noun–noun type. Following previous studies, we collected name agreement (percentage and H), familiarity, image agreement, and visual complexity norms, as well as frequency estimates for the whole compound word and its first and second constituents. These pictures and their corresponding norms (available from the Psychonomic Society's supplemental archive) are a valuable tool in the study of the morphological representation of complex words in language processing.     

Overt and covert identification of fragmented objects inferred from performance and electrophysiological measures

The authors investigated visual processing leading to object identification by manipulating the number of fragments and nature of the study. During the study, participants either named or drew objects in Experiment 1 and drew them all in Experiment 2. During the test, participants made an identification judgment at each of 6 different fragmentation levels for studied and new objects. Fewer fragments were needed to identify studied than unstudied objects. Reaction times were faster for studied than unstudied objects both at identification and at the preceding level. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to unidentified objects were characterized by a late negativity in contrast to a positivity to identified objects. ERPs to studied but not to new objects contained a smaller and later version of the identification positivity at level just prior to identification, which was not due to differential response confidence. Much covert visual analysis and even object identification may precede overt identification, depending on the nature of prior experience.     

Early extraction of meaning from pictures and its relation to conscious identification

Two experiments were conducted in which subjects labeled target pictures preceded by either semantically related or unrelated prime pictures. The exposure duration of each prime was varied around a threshold value, established separately for each subject, that represented the minimum viewing time necessary to identify the prime picture with 100% accuracy. The results of the first study indicated that semantic-priming effects can be obtained with pictures at prime exposure durations too brief for conscious identification of the prime to occur. Data from the second experiment provided an estimate of the minimum exposure time necessary for priming under these conditions. There was evidence from both experiments that attaching a name to a picture is an attended operation that can interfere with naming a subsequent picture, independent of any semantic priming that might occur. This indicates that extracting the meaning from a picture and consciously identifying it may be separate processes. The results are discussed in terms of current models of picture perception.