Age of acquisition effects on action naming in progressive fluent aphasia Veronica Bradley a , Robert Davies b , Ben Parris b , I Fan Su b , Brendan Stuart Weekes b,* a Hurstwood Park Neurological Centre, UK b University of Sussex, UK Accepted 6 July 2006 Introduction Several studies report effects of the age of acquisition of a word (AoA) on object (noun) naming in aphasia (Hirsh & Ellis, 1994; Hirsh & Funnell, 1995). These reports include studies of patients with dementia of the Alz- heimer’s type and progressive fluent aphasia or semantic dementia (Kre- min et al., 2001; Lambon Ralph, Graham, Ellis, & Hodges, 1998; Ukita, Abe, & Yamada, 1999). Recently, there has been interest in investigating AoA effects on naming of action pictures (verbs). Using multiple regres- sion methods, three studies report independent effects of AoA on naming in non-aphasic speakers. Morrison, Hirsh, and Duggan (2003) asked adults to name pictures depicting an action and then performed a simulta- neous multiple regression on naming latency for each picture. They found AoA and also a measure of name agreement predicted performance. They also asked participants to name the verbs used in action pictures presented visually and found that AoA was the only significant predictor of verb naming latency. Bogka et al. (2003) compared the effect of AoA on nam- ing pictures of objects and actions with English and Greek speakers. They found significant effects of AoA on object and action naming in both lan- guages that were independent of correlated variables such as imageability and visual complexity. Schwier, Boyer, Meot, Bonin, and Laganaro (2004) also reported effects of AoA, name agreement, and image agreement on action naming in French. We know that action naming can be impaired in patients who have dementia and according to some writers verb naming is more impaired than noun naming (Grossman et al., 2003). However, although there is convincing evidence that AoA has an impact on object naming perfor- mance in dementia—including patients with progressive aphasia—it is not known whether AoA has an effect on the action naming performance of patients or if these effects are independent of correlated variables including word frequency, word length (including the number of pho- nemes and syllables), familiarity, imageability and visual complexity. Here, we report for the first time an investigation of the effects of AoA on the object and action naming performance of a patient who has pro- gressive fluent aphasia. Subject and methods JP is a right-handed male who was 63 years of age at the time of test- ing. He is a retired professional with an estimated premorbid IQ in the high average range. JP presented with a two year history of progressive memory loss and fluent speech. He achieved a score of 25 on the MMSE and scored below the 10th percentile on tests of verbal and visual learning. JP’s performance on the NART was 2/50 correct and of the 25 items attempted his predominant error was a surface regularisation response e.g. yacht -> yatched. His performance on the BDAE revealed surface dys- graphia e.g., physician -> fergision as often observed in patients with semantic dementia JP’s performance on the Graded Naming Test was 0/ 15 correct and he produced semantic errors e.g., bear ‘‘is it a sheep?’’ On Pyramids and Palm Trees he scored 34/52 correct. Results and conclusions In Experiment 1, we examined JP’s naming using footage of actions and objects from a Verb and Noun Naming (VAN) Test (Webster & Bird, 2000). All verbs were actions (n = 54) and all nouns were objects (n = 54). Items were presented individually and JP was given unlimited time to respond. In Experiment 2, we used the same procedure to test his naming of pictures from the Object and Action Naming Battery (Druks & Mast- erson, 2000). Results are summarized in Fig. 1. ANOVA found no effects of word type (objects versus actions), image- ability, frequency or length on performance (p’s > .05). Contrary to expec- tations, there was no advantage for naming objects over actions (or vice versa). In Experiment 2, ANOVA found no effects of word type, image- ability, frequency or length on performance (all p’s > .05). However, a multiple regression analysis using values in Druks and Masterson (2000) for frequency, length, familiarity, imageability, visual complexity and AoA found that AoA (entered last) explained a significant 4% of variance in object naming F(1,79) = 4.59, p < .05 and a significant 9% of variance in action naming F(1,49) = 6.19, p < .05. No other variable was significant (all p’s > .05). The results confirm that AoA has an effect on object naming and show that AoA also has an effect on action naming in progressive flu- ent aphasia. Lambon-Ralph et al. argued that an effect of AoA on object naming in primary progressive aphasia reflects the ease with which a lexical phono- logical representation can be activated. We found evidence that AoA has an effect on object naming and this effect may emerge at a post-seman- tic level. For example, phonological representations may be organized in doi:10.1016/j.bandl.2006.06.073 * Corresponding author. Fax: +44 1273 678611. E-mail address: B.S.Weekes@sussex.ac.uk (B.S. Weekes). www.elsevier.com/locate/b&l Brain and Language 99 (2006) 8–219