The effect of ageing on confrontational naming ability

Abstract

The change in confrontational naming ability accompanying normal ageing has been widely studied. However, inconsistent findings have been reported. Our study reexamined this issue by adopting both accuracy and response latency as indices for reflecting the effect of normal ageing on confrontational naming. Sixty normal and healthy, Cantonese-speaking Chinese volunteered for this study. Thirty of them belonged to the Young Age Group (YOUNG; M=19.77 years, S.D.=1.5 years) and 30 to the Old Age Group (OLD; M=71.47 years, S.D.=6.51 years). The instrument used was the Chinese Naming Test (CNT) for measuring confrontational naming. The findings indicated that younger people performed much better than older people on the test in terms of accuracy as well as response latency. The observed different performance between the young and old participants could not be explained by their different levels of education. No gender difference in performance on the test was observed. Our findings supported our initial hypothesis that normal ageing does have a negative impact on confrontational naming. The decline in naming ability with ageing may be multifactorial. © 2002 National Academy of Neuropsychology. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.