title: How name descriptiveness impacts proper name learning in young and older adults.
abstract: To elucidate the impact of name descriptiveness and aging on learning new names, 26 young and 26 healthy older participants learned visibly-descriptive (e.g., Lengthy for a giraffe), psychologically-descriptive (e.g., Classy), and non-descriptive (e.g., Sam) proper names for previously-unknown cartoon characters. More visibly-descriptive names were learned than psychologically- or non-descriptive names, which did not differ from each other. There was also a differential benefit for older adults when the name was visibly-descriptive of the referent, such that older adults learned visibly-descriptive names as well as young adults but there were substantial age-related deficits in learning psychologically- and non-descriptive names.
authors.affiliation: University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, CO 80933, USA.
authors.forename: Kethera A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Fogler
authors.forename: Lori E
authors.initials: LE
authors.lastname: James
authors.forename: Elizabeth A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Crandall
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D001245:Association Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009275:Names; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D012660:Semantics; D055815:Young Adult