Naming latencies as evidence for two modes of lexical retrieval

Abstract

Data are reported for response latencies to naming pictures of objects which show a systematic relationship between naming latency and two measures of item difficulty. Of primary interest was a reanalysis of full latency distributions on a picture-by-picture basis to explore the possibility that overall mean latencies could in actuality be composed of multiple independent latency populations. Results are discussed in terms of “automatic” versus “voluntary search” modes of word retrieval.