Authors: Kittredge, Audrey¹; Dell, Gary¹; Verkuilen, Jay²; Schwartz, Myrna³

Source: Cognitive Neuropsychology, Volume 25, Number 4, November 2007 , pp. 463-492(30)

Publisher: Psychology Press, part of the Taylor & Francis Group

Abstract:

Some theories of lexical access in production locate the effect of lexical frequency at the retrieval of a word's phonological characteristics, as opposed to the prior retrieval of a holistic representation of the word from its meaning. Yet there is evidence from both normal and aphasic individuals that frequency may influence both of these retrieval processes. This inconsistency is especially relevant in light of recent attempts to determine the representation of another lexical property—age of acquisition or AoA—whose effect is similar to that of frequency. To further explore the representations of these lexical variables in the word retrieval system, we performed hierarchical, multinomial logistic regression analyses of 50 aphasic patients' picture-naming responses. While both log frequency and AoA had a significant influence on patient accuracy and led to fewer phonologically related errors and omissions, only log frequency had an effect on semantically related errors. These results provide evidence for a lexical access process sensitive to frequency at all stages, but with AoA having a more limited effect.

Keywords: Word production; Lexical frequency; Age of acquisition; Hierarchical multinomial logistic regression; Aphasia

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02643290701674851

Affiliations: 1: Beckman Institute, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL, USA 2: Department of Psychology, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL, USA 3: Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute, Philadelphia, PA, USA

Publication date: 2007-11-01

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