Lexical-Semantic Variables Affecting Picture and Word Naming in Chinese: A Mixed Logit Model Study in Aphasia

Lexical-semantic variables (such as word frequency, imageability and age of acquisition) have been studied extensively in neuropsychology to address the structure of the word production system. The evidence available on this issue is still rather controversial, mainly because of the very complex int...

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Main Authors: Davide Crepaldi, Wei-Chun Che, I.-Fan Su, Claudio Luzzatti
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Hindawi Limited 2012-01-01
Series:Behavioural Neurology
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.3233/BEN-2012-119002
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spelling doaj-de86fe8360a74e7d97f25282f17273b92021-07-02T08:15:01ZengHindawi LimitedBehavioural Neurology0953-41801875-85842012-01-0125316518410.3233/BEN-2012-119002Lexical-Semantic Variables Affecting Picture and Word Naming in Chinese: A Mixed Logit Model Study in AphasiaDavide Crepaldi0Wei-Chun Che1I.-Fan Su2Claudio Luzzatti3Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, ItalyOtorhinolaryngology Department, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung, TaiwanDivision of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Hong-Kong, Hong-Kong, ChinaDepartment of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, ItalyLexical-semantic variables (such as word frequency, imageability and age of acquisition) have been studied extensively in neuropsychology to address the structure of the word production system. The evidence available on this issue is still rather controversial, mainly because of the very complex interrelations between lexical-semantic variables. Moreover, it is not clear whether the results obtained in Indo-European languages also hold in languages with a completely different structure and script, such as Chinese. The objective of the present study is to investigate this specific issue by studying the effect of word frequency, imageability, age of acquisition, visual complexity of the stimuli to be named, grammatical class and morphological structure in word and picture naming in Chinese. The effect of these variables on naming and reading accuracy of healthy and brain-damaged individuals is evaluated using mixed-effect models, a statistical technique that allows to model both fixed and random effects; this feature substantially enhances the statistical power of the technique, so that several variables–and their complex interrelations–can be handled effectively in a unique analysis. We found that grammatical class interacts consistently across tasks with morphological structure: all participants, both healthy and brain-damaged, found simple nouns significantly easier to read and name than complex nouns, whereas simple and complex verbs were of comparable difficulty. We also found that imageability was a strong predictor in picture naming, but not in word naming, whereas the contrary held true for age of acquisition. These results are taken to indicate the existence of a morphological level of processing in the Chinese word production system, and that reading aloud may occur along a non-semantic route (either lexical or sub-lexical) in this language.http://dx.doi.org/10.3233/BEN-2012-119002
collection DOAJ
language English
format Article
sources DOAJ
author Davide Crepaldi
Wei-Chun Che
I.-Fan Su
Claudio Luzzatti
spellingShingle Davide Crepaldi
Wei-Chun Che
I.-Fan Su
Claudio Luzzatti
Lexical-Semantic Variables Affecting Picture and Word Naming in Chinese: A Mixed Logit Model Study in Aphasia
Behavioural Neurology
author_facet Davide Crepaldi
Wei-Chun Che
I.-Fan Su
Claudio Luzzatti
author_sort Davide Crepaldi
title Lexical-Semantic Variables Affecting Picture and Word Naming in Chinese: A Mixed Logit Model Study in Aphasia
title_short Lexical-Semantic Variables Affecting Picture and Word Naming in Chinese: A Mixed Logit Model Study in Aphasia
title_full Lexical-Semantic Variables Affecting Picture and Word Naming in Chinese: A Mixed Logit Model Study in Aphasia
title_fullStr Lexical-Semantic Variables Affecting Picture and Word Naming in Chinese: A Mixed Logit Model Study in Aphasia
title_full_unstemmed Lexical-Semantic Variables Affecting Picture and Word Naming in Chinese: A Mixed Logit Model Study in Aphasia
title_sort lexical-semantic variables affecting picture and word naming in chinese: a mixed logit model study in aphasia
publisher Hindawi Limited
series Behavioural Neurology
issn 0953-4180
1875-8584
publishDate 2012-01-01
description Lexical-semantic variables (such as word frequency, imageability and age of acquisition) have been studied extensively in neuropsychology to address the structure of the word production system. The evidence available on this issue is still rather controversial, mainly because of the very complex interrelations between lexical-semantic variables. Moreover, it is not clear whether the results obtained in Indo-European languages also hold in languages with a completely different structure and script, such as Chinese. The objective of the present study is to investigate this specific issue by studying the effect of word frequency, imageability, age of acquisition, visual complexity of the stimuli to be named, grammatical class and morphological structure in word and picture naming in Chinese. The effect of these variables on naming and reading accuracy of healthy and brain-damaged individuals is evaluated using mixed-effect models, a statistical technique that allows to model both fixed and random effects; this feature substantially enhances the statistical power of the technique, so that several variables–and their complex interrelations–can be handled effectively in a unique analysis. We found that grammatical class interacts consistently across tasks with morphological structure: all participants, both healthy and brain-damaged, found simple nouns significantly easier to read and name than complex nouns, whereas simple and complex verbs were of comparable difficulty. We also found that imageability was a strong predictor in picture naming, but not in word naming, whereas the contrary held true for age of acquisition. These results are taken to indicate the existence of a morphological level of processing in the Chinese word production system, and that reading aloud may occur along a non-semantic route (either lexical or sub-lexical) in this language.
url http://dx.doi.org/10.3233/BEN-2012-119002
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