The association between age and the frequency of nouns selected for production.

This article examines whether age-related difficulties in word retrieval are reflected in the lexical frequency of the nouns selected for production. Participants (N = 136; age range 20-85 years) completed a picture-naming test, a semantic fluency task, and a picture description task. Each noun in the speech samples was examined for its lexical frequency according to published word counts and was rated subjectively by 40 young and 40 older adults. In addition, the cumulative occurrence of each noun was calculated across all descriptions. Cumulative analysis was conducted on fluency protocols as well. Results show that age was associated with a decrease in total scores on structured single-word production tests as well as a decrease in the lexical frequency of nouns selected for production. Age was also associated with the production of words that appeared in 1 picture description only or in 1 fluency protocol only. Instead of selecting the most common nouns and thus avoiding age-associated retrieval difficulties, older speakers appear to produce more infrequent nouns, most likely because they have a larger vocabulary from which to choose these nouns.

[1]  B. Ober,et al.  Naturally occurring and experimentally induced tip-of-the-tongue experiences in three adult age groups. , 1999, Psychology and aging.

[2]  S. Kiran,et al.  Imageability effects in normal Spanish–English bilingual adults and in aphasia: Evidence from naming to definition and semantic priming tasks , 2005 .

[3]  E. Kaplan,et al.  The assessment of aphasia and related disorders , 1972 .

[4]  M. Goral.  First-language decline in healthy aging: implications for attrition in bilingualism , 2004, Journal of Neurolinguistics.

[5]  A. Loonstra,et al.  COWAT Metanorms Across Age, Education, and Gender , 2001, Applied neuropsychology.

[6]  L. E. James,et al.  Specific effects of aging on proper name retrieval: now you see them, now you don't. , 2006, The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences.

[7]  Antje S. Meyer,et al.  Age-related effects on speech production: A review , 2006 .

[8]  W J Levelt,et al.  Spoken word production: A theory of lexical access , 2001, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[9]  E. Tangalos,et al.  Mayo's older Americans normative studies: category fluency norms. , 1998, Journal of clinical and experimental neuropsychology.

[10]  Aging and word-finding: a comparison of spontaneous and constrained naming tests. , 2000 .

[11]  B. Uttl,et al.  Rising verbal intelligence scores: implications for research and clinical practice. , 2003, Psychology and aging.

[12]  P. Verhaeghen.  Aging and vocabulary scores: a meta-analysis. , 2003, Psychology and aging.

[13]  Robert K. Heaton,et al.  Norms for Letter and Category Fluency: Demographic Corrections for Age, Education, and Ethnicity , 1999, Assessment.

[14]  T. Tombaugh,et al.  Normative data stratified by age and education for two measures of verbal fluency: FAS and animal naming. , 1999, Archives of clinical neuropsychology : the official journal of the National Academy of Neuropsychologists.

[15]  A. D. Groot,et al.  Disentangling Context Availability and Concreteness in Lexical Decision and W ord Translation , 1998 .

[16]  L. Worrall,et al.  Normative data for the boston naming test for Australian elderly , 1995 .

[17]  M. Albert,et al.  Naming ability across the adult life span , 1995 .

[18]  F. Craik,et al.  The handbook of aging and cognition , 1992 .

[19]  T. Tombaugh,et al.  The 60-item Boston Naming Test: norms for cognitively intact adults aged 25 to 88 years. , 1997, Journal of clinical and experimental neuropsychology.

[20]  Zenzi M. Griffin,et al.  The influence of age on the time course of word preparation in multiword utterances , 2006 .

[21]  B. Uttl,et al.  North American Adult Reading Test: Age Norms, Reliability, and Validity , 2002, Journal of clinical and experimental neuropsychology.

[22]  Meredith A. Shafto,et al.  Aging and Language Production , 2004, Current directions in psychological science.

[23]  D. Burke,et al.  Phonological priming effects on word retrieval and tip-of-the-tongue experiences in young and older adults. , 2000, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[24]  S. Folstein,et al.  "Mini-mental state". A practical method for grading the cognitive state of patients for the clinician. , 1975, Journal of psychiatric research.

[25]  B. Gordon.  Subjective frequency and the lexical decision latency function: Implications for mechanisms of lexical access. , 1985 .

[26]  W. Levelt,et al.  Speaking: From Intention to Articulation , 1990 .

[27]  María Soledad Rodríguez,et al.  Narrative speech in aging: Quantity, information content, and cohesion , 2005, Brain and Language.

[28]  B. Christensen,et al.  NORMATIVE DATA ON THE BOSTON NAMING TEST FOR ELDERLY ADULTS IN A DEMOGRAPHICALLY DIVERSE MEDICAL SAMPLE , 1995 .

[29]  Elizabeth A. L. Stine-Morrow,et al.  Aging and self-regulated language processing. , 2006, Psychological bulletin.

[30]  M. Albert,et al.  Semantic Degradation and Lexical Access in Age-Related Naming Failures , 2000 .

[31]  E. Kaplan,et al.  The Boston naming test , 2001 .

[32]  D. Spieler,et al.  Lexical competition and phonological encoding in young and older speakers. , 2006, Psychology and aging.

[33]  G. Kavé,et al.  Standardization and norms for a Hebrew naming test , 2005, Brain and Language.

[34]  D. Balota,et al.  Factors influencing word naming in younger and older adults. , 2000, Psychology and aging.

[35]  R. Keefover,et al.  Aging and cognition. , 1998, Neurologic clinics.

[36]  G. Winocur,et al.  Clustering and switching as two components of verbal fluency: evidence from younger and older healthy adults. , 1997, Neuropsychology.

[37]  P. Mathuranath,et al.  Effects of Age, Education and Gender on Verbal Fluency , 2003, Journal of clinical and experimental neuropsychology.

[38]  S. Kemper,et al.  The structure of verbal abilities in young and older adults. , 2001, Psychology and aging.

[39]  Kathleen Rastle,et al.  Priming the Tip of the Tongue: Effects of Prior Processing on Word Retrieval in Young and Older Adults , 1996 .

[40]  R. Kliegl,et al.  Complex semantic processing in old age: does it stay or does it go? , 2000, Psychology and aging.

[41]  E. Tangalos,et al.  Neuropsychological tests' norms above age 55: COWAT, BNT, MAE token, WRAT-R reading, AMNART, STROOP, TMT, and JLO , 1996 .

[42]  Donald G. MacKay,et al.  On the tip of the tongue: What causes word finding failures in young and older adults? , 1991 .

[43]  C. Cullum,et al.  Generative naming in normal aging: Total output and qualitative changes using phonemic and semantic constraints , 1995 .

[44]  J. Hodges,et al.  The effects of very early Alzheimer's disease on the characteristics of writing by a renowned author. , 2004, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[45]  P V Cooper,et al.  Discourse production and normal aging: performance on oral picture description tasks. , 1990, Journal of gerontology.

[46]  T. Salthouse.  What and When of Cognitive Aging , 2004 .

[47]  Y. Levy,et al.  Morphology in picture descriptions provided by persons with Alzheimer's disease. , 2003, Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR.

[48]  H. Goodglass,et al.  Lexical Retrieval in Healthy Aging , 1985, Cortex.

[49]  Tatia M.C. Lee,et al.  The effect of ageing on confrontational naming ability. , 2003, Archives of clinical neuropsychology : the official journal of the National Academy of Neuropsychologists.

[50]  Kevin J. Grimm,et al.  A structural factor analysis of vocabulary knowledge and relations to age. , 2005, The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences.

[51]  G. Kavé,et al.  Phonemic Fluency, Semantic Fluency, and Difference Scores: Normative Data for Adult Hebrew Speakers , 2005, Journal of clinical and experimental neuropsychology.

[52]  Morris Moscovitch,et al.  Effects of cumulative frequency, but not of frequency trajectory, in lexical decision times of older adults and patients with Alzheimer’s disease , 2005 .

[53]  L. W. Welch,et al.  Educational and Gender Normative Data for the Boston Naming Test in a Group of Older Adults , 1996, Brain and Language.

[54]  W S Murray,et al.  Serial mechanisms in lexical access: the rank hypothesis. , 2004, Psychological review.

[55]  Matthew A. Lambon Ralph,et al.  The Rise and Fall of Frequency and Imageability: Noun and Verb Production in Semantic Dementia , 2000, Brain and Language.

[56]  J. Neils,et al.  Effects of age, education, and living environment on Boston Naming Test performance. , 1995, Journal of speech and hearing research.

[57]  A. R. Dobbs,et al.  Age differences in word finding in discourse and nondiscourse situations. , 1993, Psychology and aging.

[58]  Rochelle S Newman,et al.  Life Span Effects of Lexical Factors on Oral Naming , 2005, Language and speech.