Hi A number of years ago a colleague and I looked at item attributes as predictors of word naming difficulty on the Boston Naming Test. We did a similar thing with the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (never published). Quite good prediction with such attributes as frequency, familiarity, age of acquisition, ... (all quite highly correlated). It would be interesting to see if ratings of familiarity and age of acquisition of words has changed across time, perhaps focusing on the university-age or high school population.
Another interesting approach would be to examine more specifically when and how people of different ages learn such terms as "fly fishing." Is it perhaps the case that some of the activities we engaged in when younger are less common or universal (camp? scouts or guides?) and that is when we learned these somewhat specialized term? I do not think that it can be the lack of availability of information, given specialty tv channels, google, and the you-tube example Tim just posted. It must be something driving access or exposure to the information (assuming of course there is anything to explain). That is, a within-culture factor analogous perhaps to the mundane (although not-so for immigrants, of course) example of terms from different cultures. Just to give a further example, several of our students were impressed when I could define "malinger" (they were practising with GRE flash cards). Or does that just seem "easy" to me because I've read about and actually done some research on MMPI validity scales? Take care Jim James M. Clark Professor of Psychology 204-786-9757 204-774-4134 Fax [EMAIL PROTECTED] >>> "Shearon, Tim" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 19-Nov-07 1:33:38 AM >>> Jim- You asked- (I have no idea how many of these there are or how far this goes, but YouTube. . . ) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2SgcCw6I8M&feature=related So lack of video instruction can't be it- Have fun. Tim _______________________________ Timothy O. Shearon, PhD Professor and Chair Department of Psychology The College of Idaho Caldwell, ID 83605 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] teaching: intro to neuropsychology; psychopharmacology; general; history and systems -----Original Message----- From: Jim Matiya [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sun 11/18/2007 6:43 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: RE: [tips] Am I expecting too much? Hi Annette, Do they have fly-fishing on MtV? or My Space? I discovered several years ago, that my urban-suburban students never heard of fly-fishing. I started to include and explanation of it in my lectures...a sign of the times... Jim --- ---
