Picture written naming: Performance parallels and divergencies between aphasic patients and normal subjects

Abstract The study compares the performance of a group of aphasic patients and a group of normal subjects submitted to the same picture confrontation naming task with written responses. Analyses concerned on the one hand the effects of variables characterizing pictures and their names, and on the other hand the types of misnamings. In both cases, results indicated some similarities (e.g. prominent role of orthographic variables) as well as some dissimilarities (e.g. differential effects of variables). In addition, the classical hypothesis relating the production of verbal misnamings in aphasic patients to the production of associate names in normal subjects (Rinnert and Whitaker 1973) received little support. Non-dominant picture naming responses incidentally observed in normal subjects accounted for a higher proportion of verbal misnamings than associates.