Skip to main content
Log in

A Picture Database for Verbs and Nouns with Different Action Content in Turkish

  • Published:
Journal of Psycholinguistic Research Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In this study we present a picture database of 160 nouns and 160 verbs. All verbs and nouns are divided into two groups as action and non-action words. Age of acquisition, familiarity, imageability, name agreement and complexity norms are reported alongside frequency, word length and morpheme count for each word. Data were collected from 600 native Turkish adults in total. The results show that although several measures have weak correlations with each other, only age of acquisition had moderate downhill relationships with familiarity and frequency with familiarity and frequency having a rather strong positive correlation with each other. The norms and the picture database are available as supplemental materials for use in psycholinguistic studies in Turkish.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Aksan, Y., Aksan, M., Koltuksuz, A., Sezer, T., Mersinli, Ü., & Ufuk, U. (2012). Construction of the Turkish National Corpus (TNC). Paper presented at the Eighth International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC 2012), Istanbul, Turkey.

  • Alario, F., Ferrand, L., Laganaro, M., New, B., Frauenfelder, U. H., & Segui, J. (2004). Predictors of picture naming speed. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers, 36(1), 140–155. doi:10.3758/bf03195559.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Balota, D. A., Cortese, M. J., Sergent-Marshall, S. D., Spieler, D. H., & Yap, M. (2004). Visual word recognition of single-syllable words. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 133(2), 283–316. doi:10.1037/0096-3445.133.2.283.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barry, C., Morrison, C. M., & Ellis, A. W. (1997). Naming the Snodgrass and Vanderwart pictures: Effects of age of acquisition, frequency, and name agreement. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A, 50(3), 560–585. doi:10.1080/783663595.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bedny, M., McGill, M., & Thompson-Schill, S. L. (2008). Semantic adaptation and competition during word comprehension. Cerebral Cortex, 18(11), 2574–2585. doi:10.1093/cercor/bhn018.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Carroll, J. B., & White, M. N. (1973). Word frequency and age of acquisition as determiners of picture-naming latency. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 25(1), 85–95. doi:10.1080/14640747308400325.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cuetos, F., & Alija, M. (2003). Normative data and naming times for action pictures. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers, 35(1), 168–177. doi:10.3758/bf03195508.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Cuetos, F., Ellis, A. W., & Álvarez, B. (1999). Naming times for the Snodgrass and Vanderwart pictures in Spanish. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers, 31(4), 650–658. doi:10.3758/bf03200741.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Damasio, A. R., & Tranel, D. (1993). Nouns and verbs are retrieved with differently distributed neural systems. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 90(11), 4957–4960. doi:10.1073/pnas.90.11.4957.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ellis, A. W., & Morrison, C. M. (1998). Real age-of-acquisition effects in lexical retrieval. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 24(2), 515–523. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.24.2.515.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Gernsbacher, M. A. (1984). Resolving 20 years of inconsistent interactions between lexical familiarity and orthography, concreteness, and polysemy. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 113(2), 256–281. doi:10.1037/0096-3445.113.2.256.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gilhooly, K. J., & Logie, R. H. (1980). Age-of-acquisition, imagery, concreteness, familiarity, and ambiguity measures for 1,944 words. Behavior Research Methods and Instrumentation, 12(4), 395–427. doi:10.3758/bf03201693.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Göz, I. (2003). Yazılı Türkçe’nin Kelime Sıklığı Sözlüğü. Ankara: Türk Dil Kurumu.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hirsh, K. W., & Funnell, E. (1995). Those old, familiar things: Age of acquisition, familiarity and lexical access in progressive aphasia. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 9(1), 23–32. doi:10.1016/0911-6044(95)00003-8.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Johnston, R. A., & Barry, C. (2006). Age of acquisition and lexical processing. Visual Cognition, 13(7–8), 789–845. doi:10.1080/13506280544000066.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Juhasz, B. J. (2005). Age-of-acquisition effects in word and picture identification. Psychological Bulletin, 131(5), 684–712. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.131.5.684.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Juhasz, B. J., & Rayner, K. (2003). Investigating the effects of a set of intercorrelated variables on eye fixation durations in reading. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 29(6), 1312–1318. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.29.6.1312.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Marcel, A. J., & Patterson, K. E. (1978). Word recognition and production: Reciprocity in clinical and normal studies. Attention and performance VII. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morrison, C. M., Ellis, A. W., & Quinlan, P. T. (1992). Age of acquisition, not word frequency, affects object naming, not object recognition. Memory and Cognition, 20(6), 705–714. doi:10.3758/bf03202720.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Paivio, A. (1971). Imagery and verbal processes. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.

    Google Scholar 

  • Perani, D., Schnur, T., Tettamanti, M., Cappa Italy, S. F., & Fazio, F. (1999). Word and picture matching: A PET study of semantic category effects. Neuropsychologia, 37(3), 293–306. doi:10.1016/s0028-3932(98)00073-6.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Raman, I. (2006). On the age of acquisition effects in word naming and orthographic transparency: Mapping specific or universal? Visual Cognition, 13, 1044–1053. doi:10.1080/13506280500153200.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Raman, I., Baluch, B., & Sneddon, P. (1996). What is the cognitive system’s preferred route for deriving phonology from print? European Psychologist, 1, 221–227.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Raman, I., Raman, E., & Mertan, B. (2013). A standardized set of 260 pictures for Turkish: Norms of name and image agreement, age of acquisition, visual complexity, and conceptual familiarity. Behavior Research Methods, 46(2), 588–595. doi:10.3758/s13428-013-0376-4.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Richardson, J. T. E. (1975). Concreteness and imageability. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 27(2), 235–249. doi:10.1080/14640747508400483.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Roodenrys, S., Hulme, C., Alban, J., Ellis, A. W., & Brown, G. D. A. (1994). Effects of word frequency and age of acquisition on short-term memory span. Memory and Cognition, 22(6), 695–701. doi:10.3758/bf03209254.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Rossion, B., & Pourtois, G. (2004). Revisiting Snodgrass and Vanderwart’s object pictorial set: The role of surface detail in basic-level object recognition. Perception, 33(2), 217–236. doi:10.1068/p5117.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Shannon, C. E., & Weaver, W. (Eds.). (1949). The mathematical theory of communication. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.

  • Shapiro, K. A., Moo, L. R., & Caramazza, A. (2006). Cortical signatures of noun and verb production. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 103(5), 1644–1649. doi:10.1073/pnas.0504142103.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Snodgrass, J. G., & Vanderwart, M. (1980). A standardized set of 260 pictures: Norms for name agreement, image agreement, familiarity, and visual complexity. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 6(2), 174–215. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.6.2.174.

    Google Scholar 

  • Snodgrass, J. G., & Yuditsky, T. (1996). Naming times for the Snodgrass and Vanderwart pictures. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers, 28(4), 516–536. doi:10.3758/bf03200540.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Szekely, A., & Bates, E. (2000). Objective visual complexity as a variable in studies of picture naming. Center for Research in Language Newsletter, 12(2), 1–33.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vigliocco, G., Vinson, D. P., Druks, J., Barber, H., & Cappa, S. F. (2011). Nouns and verbs in the brain: A review of behavioural, electrophysiological, neuropsychological and imaging studies. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 35(3), 407–426. doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2010.04.007.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Weekes, B. S., Shu, H., Hao, M., Liu, Y., & Tan, L. H. (2007). Predictors of timed picture naming in Chinese. Behavior Research Methods, 39(2), 335–342. doi:10.3758/bf03193165.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank María González-Nosti and Fernando Cuetos for their guidance during the design.

Funding This study was funded as a part of a research project by Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) (Grant number 115S812).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ece Bayram.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest for this study.

Ethical Standards

This study was approved by local ethics committee and was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Bayram, E., Aydin, Ö., Ergenc, H.I. et al. A Picture Database for Verbs and Nouns with Different Action Content in Turkish. J Psycholinguist Res 46, 847–861 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-016-9471-x

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-016-9471-x

Keywords

Navigation