Timed written picture naming in 14 European languages

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Psycholinguistics
• Neuroscience

Background:

• Understanding written word production is crucial for cognitive science.
• Existing research often focuses on single languages, limiting cross-linguistic insights.
• The Snodgrass and Vanderwart picture set is a widely used stimulus in cognitive research.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce the Multilanguage Written Picture Naming Dataset.
• To provide trial-level data, response time, and agreement norms for written picture naming.
• To investigate cross-linguistic similarities and differences in written naming processes.

Main Methods:

• Collected keyboarded responses for 260 pictures from 1,274 adult participants across 14 languages.
• Measured response initiation time (RT) and interkeypress intervals.
• Calculated name and spelling agreement, and analyzed effects of familiarity, image agreement, and name frequency.

Main Results:

• Faster response times (RTs) were associated with higher familiarity, image agreement, name frequency, and name agreement across all languages.
• Spelling agreement effects and effects on output rates varied across languages.
• Written naming exhibited retrieval effects similar to those observed in spoken naming.

Conclusions:

• The Multilanguage Written Picture Naming Dataset offers valuable norms for cross-linguistic research.
• Written picture naming involves cognitive processes comparable to spoken naming.
• Further cross-language research is needed to understand language-specific orthographic retrieval and assembly processes.