Abstract
Using 120 picture naming stimuli, consisting of “living things” and “man-made objects” which are from each of 7 semantic categories (14 subcategories) , naming ability of 88 healthy adults (23-63 years old) was examined. Average accuracy rate was 97.3％, of which 2.9％ involved self-correction. Naming performance was clearly influenced by word frequency (high > low frequency) , and also by semantic category (man-made objects > living things) , and age (over 40 years old > under 39 years old) . An interaction between semantic category and gender was found and maleʼs naming score for low frequency words for ʻliving thingsʼ was significantly lower than that of femaleʼs scores. Within the 14 semantic subcategories, gender differences were found in “flowers” (female > male) and “vehicles” (male > female) . 85.2％ of the subjects produced naming errors and about 92％ of these were semantically related responses (most of them were semantic co-ordinate errors, 69.9％) . There was a tendency for errors when “error words” involved higher frequency/familiarity/imageability than target words. Multiple regression analysis revealed significant effects of imageability and semantic category as predictors for the occurrence of errors. These results are discussed from the cognitive neuropsychological perspective.
