Performance of younger and older adults on bidirectional naming (BiN) assessment

Abstract

The present study was a descriptive comparison of the performance of younger and older adults on a bidirectional naming (BiN) assessment. BiN is defined as a higher-order operant that enables acquisition of novel speaker and listener behavior without direct reinforcement. No previous studies have examined adults’ performance on a commonly used BiN assessment. The younger group consisted of twelve participants aged 18 – 25 and the older group consisted of twelve participants aged 67 and older. The BiN assessment was divided into two parts: “naming experience“ and BiN probe (listener and speaker probe). In the naming experience, participants saw unfamiliar visual stimuli, each presented simultaneously with an auditory stimulus. Two hours later, BiN probes were conducted that consisted of 20 listener and 20 speaker trials. Only one participant aged 18 – 25 met the criteria for BiN used in the existing literature. No participant in the older group met the criteria for BiN. It was unexpected that adults without neurological impairments did not meet the criteria for BiN, given that the assessment is intended to assess a repertoire hypothesized to develop in early childhood. The results raise questions regarding what the BiN assessment measures.