Examining the influence of picture format on children’s naming responses

Digital photography has facilitated the use of more ecological stimuli than line drawings as experimental stimuli. However, there is lack of evidence regarding the effect of the picture format on children’s naming agreement. The present work investigated whether the format of presentation of the pictures (line drawing or photograph) affects naming task performance in children. Two naming task experiments are reported using 106 concepts depicted both as a photograph and as a matched drawing delineated directly from the photograph. Thirty-eight and thirty-four Spanish-speaking children from 8 to 10 years old participated in Experiment 1 and Experiment 2, respectively. We examined name agreement measures (H index, percentage of modal name, and alternative responses) and subjective scales (familiarity and visual complexity). The results revealed a significant main effect of format in all of the variables except for familiarity, indicating better name agreement indices and higher visual complexity values for the photograph format than for the line drawing format. Additionally, line drawings were more likely to produce alternative incorrect names. The implications of these findings for psychoeducational research and practice are discussed.