The Role of Imagery-related Properties in Picture Naming: a Newly Standardized Set of 360 Pictures for Japanese

Picture naming was investigated primarily to determine its dependence on certain imagery-related variables, with a secondary aim of developing a new set of Japanese norms for 360 pictures. Pictures refined from the original Nishimoto, Miyawaki, Ueda, Une, and Takahashi (Behavior Research Methods 37:398-416, 2005) set were used. Naming behaviors were measured using four imagery-related measures (imageability, vividness, image agreement, and image variability) and four conventional measures (naming time, name agreement, familiarity, and age of acquisition), as well as a number of other measures (17 total). A simultaneous multiple regression analysis performed on naming times showed that the most reliable predictor was H, a measure of name diversity; two image-related measures (image agreement and vividness) and age of acquisition also contributed substantially to the prediction of naming times. The accuracy of picture naming (measured as name agreement) was predicted by vividness, age of acquisition, familiarity, and image agreement. This suggests that certain processes involving mental imagery play a role in picture naming. The full set of norms and pictures may be downloaded from http://www.psychonomic.org/archive/ or along with the article from http://www.springerlink.com .