Corps Ruth E, Meyer Antje S
Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
Psychology of Language Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove). 2025 Jul;78(7):1487-1499. doi: 10.1177/17470218241274661. Epub 2024 Sep 12.
Name agreement (NA) refers to the degree to which speakers agree on a picture's name. A robust finding is that speakers are faster to name pictures with high agreement (HA) than those with low agreement (LA). This NA effect is thought to occur because LA pictures strongly activate several names, so speakers need time to select one. HA pictures, in contrast, strongly activate a single name, so there is no need to select one name out of several alternatives. Recent models of lexical access suggest that the structure of the mental lexicon changes with experience. Thus, speakers should consider a range of names when naming LA pictures, but the extent to which they consider each of these names should change with experience. We tested these hypotheses in two picture-naming experiments. In Experiment 1, participants were faster to name LA than HA pictures when they named each picture once. Importantly, they were faster to produce modal names (provided by most participants) than alternative names for LA pictures, consistent with the view that speakers activate multiple names for LA pictures. In Experiment 2, participants were familiarised with the modal name before the experiment and named each picture three times. Although there was still an NA effect when participants named the pictures the first time, it was reduced in comparison to Experiment 1 and was further reduced with each picture repetition. Thus, familiarisation and repetition reduced the NA effect but did not eliminate it, suggesting speakers activate a range of plausible names.
名称一致性(NA)指的是说话者对一幅图片名称的一致程度。一个确凿的发现是,与低一致性(LA)的图片相比,说话者为高一致性(HA)的图片命名的速度更快。人们认为这种NA效应的出现是因为LA图片会强烈激活多个名称,所以说话者需要时间来选择一个。相比之下,HA图片会强烈激活一个单一名称,所以无需从多个备选名称中选择一个。最近的词汇通达模型表明,心理词典的结构会随着经验而变化。因此,说话者在为LA图片命名时应该考虑一系列名称,但他们对每个名称的考虑程度应该会随着经验而改变。我们在两个图片命名实验中对这些假设进行了测试。在实验1中,参与者在对每张图片命名一次时,为LA图片命名的速度比对HA图片命名的速度更快。重要的是,他们说出LA图片的模态名称(由大多数参与者提供)的速度比对备选名称的速度更快,这与说话者为LA图片激活多个名称的观点一致。在实验2中,参与者在实验前熟悉了模态名称,并对每张图片命名三次。尽管参与者在第一次命名图片时仍然存在NA效应,但与实验1相比有所降低,并且随着每张图片的重复命名进一步降低。因此,熟悉和重复减少了NA效应,但并没有消除它,这表明说话者激活了一系列合理的名称。