Beyond Picture Naming: Norms and Patient Data for a Verb-Generation Task

Abstract

In the current study, the authors aimed to (a) acquire a set of verb generation to picture norms; and (b) probe its utility as an outcomes measure in aphasia treatment. In Phase I, the verb-generation normative sample, 50 healthy volunteers generated verbs for 218 pictures of common objects (interstimulus interval = 5 s). In Phase II, 4 persons with aphasia (PWAs) generated verbs for 60 objects (interstimulus interval = 10 s). Their stimuli consisted of objects that were (a) recently trained (for object naming; n = 20), (b) untrained (a control set; n = 20), or (c) from a set of pictures named correctly at baseline (n = 20). Verb generation was acquired twice: once 2 months into and once following a 6-month home practice program. No objects elicited perfect verb agreement in the normed sample. Stimuli with the highest percent agreement were mostly artifacts and dominant verbs primary functional associates. Although not targeted in treatment or home practice, PWAs mostly improved performance in verb generation postpractice. A set of clinically and experimentally useful verb-generation norms was acquired for a subset of the Snodgrass and Vanderwart (1980) picture set. More cognitively demanding than confrontation naming, this task may help to fill the sizeable gap between object picture naming and propositional speech.