The Rapid Automatized Naming test (RAN) has been shown to be a strong predictor of reading ability (Bowers and Wolf, 1993), however, the nature of this relationship remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether the visual scanning and sequential components of the continuous RAN format are similar to those same visual scanning processes required in reading, and whether these processes partially account for the relationship. The sample consisted of 57 undergraduate students (63.2% female). The majority of the sample was either Caucasian (33.3%) or African American (29.8%). The eye movement measures consisted of three short stories and the continuous versions of two RAN tasks (colors and letters). This study examined the percent of regressions and fixations during both types of tasks (reading text and RAN). The findings suggest that the continuous RAN measures important visual scanning and sequencing processes that are important in predicting reading ability.

In a phonological assessment, the aim is to obtain systematic and reliable data of a child's speech output, which can then serve as a basis for a decision on an appropriate intervention (Wolk & Meisler, 1998). Whether phonological assessment should be derived from an analysis of picture-naming or a conversation with the child, and whether the two methods for elicitation generate equivalent results, has been debated among clinicians and researchers for an extended time (Masterson, Bernhardt & Hofheintz, 2005). The aim of the present study was to compare two methods of speech elicitation for phonological assessment: spontaneous conversation and picture-naming, respectively. In the study, the procedures have been used when assessing children with phonological disorders as well as children with typical language development. The results are presented using two levels of phonological analysis; degree of phonological impairment, in terms of percentage of phonemes correct (PPC), and type of phonological impairment, in terms of phonological simplification processes. Eighteen (18) children participated in the study, nine (9) with phonological impairment (age 3;10 – 5;11), and nine with typical phonologic development (age 3;2 – 4;6). No significant differences were found regarding the percentage of phonemes correct between the two elicitation methods, neither for the group of children with phonological impairment, nor for the group of children with typical phonological development. Thus, the degree of speech difficulties was the same regardless of elicitation method. In assessing the type of impairment, however, a comparison between the sensitivity and the specificity obtained in the two tests indicate that there is a difference in how well the two elicitation methods intercept the phonological simplification processes. In the two elicitating methods, exactly the same processes could not be found in the speech of any child. The discussion includes the consequences of word structure, position and context of phonemes in the different speech samples. Furthermore, advantages and disadvantages of using the different elicitation methods in phonological assessment are discussed. The present study contributes to an increased knowledge about the ability to capture phonological problems sing picture-naming and conversational speech samples, respectively, in assessing a child’s speech. Furthermore, the study presents input to the on-going debate on phonological assessment, and may contribute to reflectance when selecting a clinical assessment tool.

The purpose of this study was to develop and pilot a naming test for Urdu-English bilinguals, a population that is growing quickly in the United States. Eighty-five target items were selected from the International Picture Naming Project Database and arranged in the order of least to most familiar. Familiarity ratings were used as estimates of item difficulty to develop the naming task because word frequency information was not available in the Urdu language. Thirty-one young adult bilinguals named black-and-white drawing of these targets in both Urdu and English. Self-rating of proficiency, examiner rating of proficiency and a standardized English receptive vocabulary test were used to cross-validate the naming test. The participants' current and cumulative language use were measured to investigate the relationships among language use, naming performance, and other measures of proficiency. The results indicate that performance on the naming test was correlated with convergent measures of language proficiency, including self-rating, examiner rating, and standardized test performance. Naming performance was related to cumulative reading experience in participants' first language. Familiarity ratings were related to naming performance in Urdu. These findings suggest that the naming task developed in the current study is a valid measure of language proficiency, and that familiarity ratings can be used as estimation of item difficulty in test development when word frequency data are unavailable. The naming test should be refined and further piloted with participants of various ages and those who are Urdu-dominant or balanced bilingual. / text

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Reading is a fundamental skill for functioning in today’s society. Given the breadth of activities that require reading, it is important to develop a comprehensive model of basic reading processes. Furthermore, considering that many pictures co-appear with words in everyday life, it is imperative to understand the nature of picture identification processes, as well as how they interact with reading processes. As such, the present thesis focuses on developing a model of reading and extending it to include picture processing. In the present research, experiments on word identification (Experiments 1 and 2) examined onset reaction time (RT) in a word naming task using an additive factors method. The pattern of additive and overadditive joint effects on naming RT among Instructions (INST: name all, name words), Word Frequency (WF: log10HAL), Semantic Neighbourhood Density (SND: Inverse Ncount), and Word Type (WT: regular, exception) supported a cognitive chronometric architecture consisting of at least two cascaded stages of processing, with the orthographic lexical system as the locus of the INST x WF and the INST x SND interactions, and the phonological output system as the locus of the WF x WT and the SND x WT interactions. Additivity between INST and WT supports the notion that these variables affect separable systems, and a WF x SND interaction supports a common locus of their effects. These results support a dual-route cascaded model over parallel processing models of basic reading. We also examined response duration (RD) in these data by recording and hand-marking vocal responses, which provides evidence that reading processes are ongoing even after the initiation of a vocal response, and supports the notion that the more lexically a word is read, the shorter the RD. As such, the effects of WT and INST on RD were opposite to their effects on RT. Given the dissociating effects between RT and RD, these results provide new challenges to all models of basic reading processes. Experiments on picture and word identification (Experiments 3 and 4) involved localizing common systems and connections between these processes, and served to extend the dual-route model of reading. These experiments examined naming RT and RD for exception and regular words, and their corresponding pictures. The pattern of joint effects on RT among Format (pictures, words), Picture-Orthography Agreement, WF, and WT (regular, exception) supported a triple-route cascaded model. The results suggest the orthographic lexical system is accessed for both picture and word naming, and demonstrated a dissociation between regular and exception words on RT versus RD, whereas pictures consistently yielded an exception item advantage for both measures. Experiment 4 examined Arabic digits and their corresponding number words, and found that Arabic digits produce shorter RDs than number words. In general, the results suggest that the picture and word identification systems are strongly coupled between the picture memory system and the orthographic lexical system, particularly for items that rely on “whole-word” lexical representations. We argue that RD provides a wider window for exploring cognition, and a converging measure of lexical processing, which must be considered when studying basic identification processes of any stimulus type. The development of a comprehensive model of basic reading processes will help identify behavioural markers of normal reading processes, and will serve to advance research on basic word recognition. In addition, given that a broad definition of ‘literacy’ should include picture processing, the development of a model that includes picture processing will serve to advance research on how reading and picture processing interact with each other, which may be critical for individuals with low literacy skills.

My diploma thesis deals with one of the incomes of sports arenas and stadiums, which is known as naming rights. This term means the cooperation between the owner of sports facilities with private companies, which pay the fee for hiring the name of stadium or arena. In the first part I explain what the naming rights are and I refer also about other stadium's and arena's incomes. In further chapters I analyze the top football and hockey leagues in sports and economically developed countries all over the world. The survey follows. It covers the naming rights situation in the Czech Republic. Based on the results of the survey I compare naming rights in the Czech Republic and in the analyzed countries.

Benämningsförmågan av verb och substantiv kan påverkas på skilda sätt vid neurologisk skada eller sjukdom och idag finns inget normerat verbbenämningstest på svenska. Syftet med föreliggande studie var att översätta och ta fram normvärden för friska vuxna personer på Action Naming Test (ANT), samt att undersöka huruvida ålder, kön, utbildnings- och kognitionsnivå påverkar resultaten. Målorden i ANT översattes från engelska till svenska genom omvänd översättning och 120 personer i åldrarna 20-83 år testades med detta. För möjlighet att undersöka inverkande faktorer på resultaten samlades information om utbildningsnivå in och deltagarna testades även med Irregularly Spelled Words (ISW) och Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-III (WISC-III) Blockmönster. Resultaten visade att ålder, utbildning och kognition hade en inverkan på hur friska vuxna personer presterade på ANT. Yngre deltagare presterade signifikant bättre, liksom deltagare med hög utbildnings- och kognitionsnivå. Hänsyn bör tas till att anpassningar till svenska språket inte är fullständigt utförda, men då resultaten har ett stort underlag kan de ändå användas som normvärden vid testning av verbbenämningsförmåga hos personer med neurologisk skada eller sjukdom. / In case of brain damage the naming ability of verbs and nouns can be differently affected. Since there is no test of verb naming available in Swedish, the aim of this study was to translate and establish normative data for Action Naming Test (ANT). Further, the intention was to compare the results with respect to age, gender, educational and cognitive level. The words in ANT were translated from English to Swedish through back translation and 120 healthy participants, aged 20-83 years, were tested. To be able to study factors possible influence on the results, information about education was also collected and the participants were tested with Irregularly Spelled Words (ISW) and Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-III (WISC-III) Block Design. The result showed that age, education and cognition had a significant influence on the ANT results. Young participants performed better, as well as participants with high educational and cognitive level. Considerations should be taken that the adaptations to the Swedish language are incompletely, but since the result is based on a large sample it can be used to test verb naming in patients with brain damage.

Naming speed (NS) tasks that measure how quickly and accurately participants can name visual stimuli (e.g., letters) are commonly used to predict reading ability. However, the link between NS and reading is poorly understood. Three methods were used to investigate how NS relates to reading and what cognitive processes are involved: (a) changing stimulus composition to emphasize phonological and/or visual aspects (Compton, 2003); (b) decomposing NS times into pause and articulation components; and (c) analyzing eye movements during a NS task. Participants were in three groups: dyslexics (aged 9, 10), chronological-age (CA) controls (age 9, 10), and reading-level (RL) controls (aged 6, 7). We used a letter NS task and three variants that were either phonologically and/or visually confusing while subjects’ eye movements and articulations were recorded, and examined how these manipulations influenced NS performance and eye movements. For all groups, NS manipulations were associated with specific patterns of behaviour and saccadic performance, reflecting differential contributions of NS to reading. RL controls were less efficient, made more errors, saccades and regressions, and made longer fixation durations, articulation times, and pause times than CA controls. Dyslexics consistently scored in between controls, except for the number of saccades and regressions in which they made more than both control groups. Overall there were clear developmental changes in NS performance, NS components, and eye movements in controls from ages 6 to 10 that appear to occur more slowly for dyslexics. Furthermore, pause time and fixation duration were key features in the NS-reading relationship, and increasing visual similarity of the letter matrix had the greatest effect on performance for all subjects. This latter result was demonstrated by the decrease in efficiency and eye-voice span, increase in naming errors, saccades, and regressions, and longer pause times and fixation durations found for all subjects. We conclude that NS is related to reading via fixation durations and pause times; longer fixation durations reflect the greater amount of time needed to acquire visual/orthographic information from stimuli, and longer pause times in children with dyslexia reflect the greater amount of time needed to prepare to respond to stimuli. / Thesis (Master, Neuroscience Studies) -- Queen's University, 2013-09-26 12:24:53.951