The impact of image characteristics on written naming in adults

The present study was aimed at investigating whether and how image characteristics influence written naming performance in adults. In three different sessions, participants had to quickly write down the names of pictured objects on a graphic tablet. Across sessions, the picture format was different, but the to-be-named objects were the same: There were black-and-white pictures (Snodgrass & Vanderwart's [SV] 1980 drawings), grayscale and colored pictures of the SV drawings as provided by Rossion and Pourtois (2004). Linear-mixed models (LMM) were used to analyze written latencies. The main findings were the following: (1) Colorized pictures yielded shorter written naming latencies than line drawings with the grayscale pictures being situated between the two; (2) Both within- and between-picture format LMM revealed reliable effects of name agreement, objective word frequency, frequency trajectory (the effect was marginal in the grayscale condition), and imageability on written latencies. The influence of image agreement was, however, less stable (reliable only in the colorized condition in the within-picture format LMM analysis; significant with both line drawings and their colorized version only in the between-picture format LMM analysis); (3) None of the interactions with picture format reached significance except the interaction of Image agreement with Picture format. In line with Bonin, Roux, Barry, & Canell (2012b), the findings support a limited-cascading account of written word production.