The present study examined the relationship of reading disability (RD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to balancing problems. In the cerebellar deficit hypothesis of dyslexia of Nicolson et al. [Trends Neurosci. 24 (2001) 508], balancing problems are taken as sign of a cerebellar deficit and were found to be associated with dyslexia. Four groups of 10 children each, represen...

The Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) test involves rapidly naming sequences of items presented in a visual array. RAN has generated considerable interest because RAN performance predicts reading achievement. This study sought to determine what elements of RAN are responsible for the shared variance between RAN and reading performance using a series of cognitive tasks and a latent variable modelli...

Although word learning unfolds over days, weeks, and months, individual naming events are over in a matter of seconds. To benefit from a naming event, children must at least hear the label and see the referent. We tested 1-, 2, 3-, and 4-year old children in a naturalistic word learning task with two conditions: one that taxed both speech processing and rapid gazefollowing, and one in which a s...

Historically, both clinicians and cognitive scientists have used visual object naming measures to study naming, and lesion-type studies have implicated the left posterior, temporo-parietal region as a critical component of naming circuitry. However, recent results from behavioral and cortical stimulation studies using auditory description naming as well as visual object naming in left temporal ...

Human languages can be seen as socially evolved systems that have been structured to optimize information flow in communication. In particular, it appears that communication proceeds both more efficiently and more smoothly when information is distributed evenly across the linguistic signal. In previous work (Ramscar et al. 2013), we used tools from information theory to examine how naming syste...

Numbers can be represented as Arabic digits ("6") or as number words ("six"). The present study investigated potential processing differences between the two notational formats. In view of the previous finding (e.g., Potter & Faulconer, 1975) that objects are named slower, but semantically categorized faster, than corresponding words, it was investigated whether a similar interaction between st...

Human languages can be seen as socially evolved systems that have been structured to optimize information flow in communication. Communication appears to proceed both more efficiently and more fluently when information is distributed evenly across the linguistic signal. In previous work (Ramscar et al., 2013), we used tools from information theory to examine how naming systems evolved to meet t...

Two experiments examined decay and additivity of semantic priming produced by DRM false memory lists on a naming task. Subjects were presented with study lists containing 14 DRM items that were either all 14 related, the first 7 related, the second 7 related, or all 14 unrelated to the non-presented critical item. Priming was measured on a naming task that presented the critical item in test po...

Previous studies of spoken picture naming using event-related potentials (ERPs) have shown that speakers initiate lexical access within 200 ms after stimulus onset. In the present study, we investigated the time course of lexical access in written, rather than spoken, word production. Chinese participants wrote target object names which varied in word frequency, and written naming times and ERP...