Age of Acquisition, Word Frequency, and the Locus of Repetition Priming of Picture Naming

We examined the roles of age of acquisition (AoA) and word frequency in picture naming latencies and studied repetition priming to illuminate the locus and mechanism by which the effective variable has its effect. Experiment 1 found that AoA affected naming latencies when frequency was controlled, and Experiment 2 found that frequency had no effect when AoA was controlled. Experiment 3 found no effects of either AoA or frequency in delayed picture naming. Picture naming was facilitated by the prior naming of identical pictures and, to a lesser extent, by the prior reading aloud of the names. Repetition priming interacted with AoA but did not interact with frequency. We conclude that both AoA and long-lasting repetition priming operate at the level of lexical-phonological retrieval and that repetition interacts with AoA because it facilitates the retrieval of lexical-phonological elements required for naming, which benefits late-acquired words differentially.