UEL Psychology Seminar Series
Date:
3rd December 2014
Time:
17:00-18:00
Venue:
Arthur Edwards Building, Room 2.06
Dr. Melanie Vitkovitch
School
of Psychology, University of East London
Title:
Oranges are not the only fruit, but why are the others somewhat
mute?
Abstract:
How do
we name an everyday object, such as an apple? This might seem a
relatively simple task, which must involve first recognizing the shape of the
object, and then articulating the label or name that we have come to associate
with it. However, there is a fascinating finding in cognitive psychology
which suggests name retrieval is quite complex. Studies have shown that
when we name several pictures from the same semantic category, we get slower
and slower.In this talk, I shall refer to some recent explanations of why
naming times are delayed for semantically similar objects. I shall
summarise some experimental work that I have carried out in the School of
Psychology, in which healthy adults are asked to name both words and pictures
from the same category. I shall also refer to some quite recent work on
individual differences in object naming, and how this may relate to specific
cognitive abilities. Understanding individual differences in
picture naming is important, as many individuals with brain damage have
difficulties in retrieving names, and picture naming is an important
neuropsychological test.
Brief Biography:
After
completing her degree at Edinburgh, Melanie worked in a number of academic
institutions before taking up a lecturership at UEL in the 1990s.
Her research has focussed mainly on understanding how we retrieve names for
objects, an area of research which continues to be of interest to
psycholinguists and cognitive neuroscientists. She has used mainly
experimental methods e.g., analysing time to name a picture of an object in semantic
contexts, and also analysis of types of errors made too.
Session
Chair:
Professor
Cynthia Fu
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