Language Imaging Lab Aphasia Battery

(~15 minutes)

Picture Naming

Picture naming assesses object recognition, lexical retrieval, output phonology, phoneme articulation, and connecting pathways between these systems (Pillay et al., 2017). Subjects are asked to name pictures of common objects from a variety of categories. In addition to overall accuracy, category effects are measured by comparing performance on manmade artifacts, living things, body parts, and musical instruments. Many patients have been reported to show differential loss of knowledge and naming ability for these categories (Damasio et al., 2004; Forde & Humphreys, 1999; Gainotti, 2000; Warrington & Shallice, 1984). Finally, the relative proportion of different error types has implications regarding the locus and type of processing defect (Dell et al., 1997; Schwartz et al., 2011).

Materials:

line drawings of familiar objects from a standardized picture set (Snodgrass & Vanderwart, 1980)
30 pictures of nonliving artifacts (vehicles, tools, clothing, furniture, etc.)
30 pictures of living things (plants, animals)
artifact and living sets matched for name length, name frequency, concept familiarity, name agreement, imageability, age of acquisition, and control response time (Snodgrass & Vanderwart, 1980; Snodgrass & Yuditsky, 1996)
12 pictures of body parts
8 pictures of musical instruments

Procedure:

patient attempts to say the name of each item, responses automatically digitized
maximum of 10 sec allowed for response

Scoring and Data analysis:

first complete response scored; errors categorized
%correct overall and for each trial type, chi-square test for category effects
mean response time by category; multiple regression for frequency and other effects; MANOVA for residual category effects

References

Damasio H, Tranel D, Grabowski T, Adolphs R, & Damasio A. (2004). Neural systems behind word and concept retrieval. Cognition, 92, 179-229.

Dell GS, Schwartz MF, Martin N, Saffran EM, & Gagnon DA. (1997). Lexical access in aphasic and nonaphasic speakers. Psychological Review, 104, 801-838.

Forde EME, & Humphreys GW. (1999). Category-specific recognition impairments: a review of important case studies and influential theories. Aphasiology, 13, 169-193.

Gainotti, G. (2000). What the locus of brain lesion tells us about the nature of the cognitive defect underlying category-specific disorders: A review. Cortex, 36, 539-559.

Pillay SB, Binder JR, Humphries C, Gross WL, & Book DS. (2017). Lesion localization of speech comprehension deficits in chronic aphasia. Neurology, 88, 970-975.

Schwartz MF, Kimberg DY, Walker GM, Brecher A, Faseyitan OK, Dell GS, Mirman D, & Coslett HB. (2011). Neuroanatomical dissociation for taxonomic and thematic knowledge in the human brain. PNAS, 108, 8520-8524.

Snodgrass JG, & Vanderwart M. (1980). A standardized set of 260 pictures: Norms for name agreement, image agreement, familiarity, and visual complexity. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 6, 174-215.

Snodgrass JG, & Yuditsky T. (1996). Naming times for the Snodgrass and Vanderwart pictures. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 28, 516-536.

Warrington EK, & Shallice T. (1984). Category specific semantic impairments. Brain, 107, 829-854.