title: Timed picture naming in seven languages.
abstract: Timed picture naming was compared in seven languages that vary along dimensions known to affect lexical access. Analyses over items focused on factors that determine cross-language universals and cross-language disparities. With regard to universals, number of alternative names had large effects on reaction time within and across languages after target-name agreement was controlled, suggesting inhibitory effects from lexical competitors. For all the languages, word frequency and goodness of depiction had large effects, but objective picture complexity did not. Effects of word structure variables (length, syllable structure, compounding, and initial frication) varied markedly over languages. Strong cross-language correlations were found in naming latencies, frequency, and length. Other-language frequency effects were observed (e.g., Chinese frequencies predicting Spanish reaction times) even after within-language effects were controlled (e.g., Spanish frequencies predicting Spanish reaction times). These surprising cross-language correlations challenge widely held assumptions about the lexical locus of length and frequency effects, suggesting instead that they may (at least in part) reflect familiarity and accessibility at a conceptual level that is shared over languages.
authors.affiliation: Center for Research in Language, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093-0526, USA. bates@crl.ucsd.edu
authors.forename: Elizabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Bates
authors.forename: Simona
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: D'Amico
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Jacobsen
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Székely
authors.forename: Elena
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Andonova
authors.forename: Antonella
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Devescovi
authors.forename: Dan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Herron
authors.forename: Ching Ching
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Pechmann
authors.forename: Csaba
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Pléh
authors.forename: Nicole
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Wicha
authors.forename: Kara
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Federmeier
authors.forename: Irini
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Gerdjikova
authors.forename: Gabriel
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Gutierrez
authors.forename: Daisy
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Hung
authors.forename: Jeanne
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hsu
authors.forename: Gowri
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Iyer
authors.forename: Katherine
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kohnert
authors.forename: Teodora
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Mehotcheva
authors.forename: Araceli
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Orozco-Figueroa
authors.forename: Angela
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tzeng
authors.forename: Ovid
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Tzeng
mesh_terms: D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008037:Linguistics; D010700:Phonetics; D011930:Reaction Time; D014796:Visual Perception; D014825:Vocabulary