Troyer and colleagues [Troyer, A. K., Moscovitch, M., & Winocur, G. (1997). Clustering and switching as two components of verbal fluency: evidence from younger and older healthy adults. Neuropsychology, 11(1), 138-146] developed a seminal method to measure clustering and switching behaviors during verbal fluency (VF) productions. We sought to expand the reach of their system by modifying the scoring rules. Compared to the Troyer system, our modifications yield comparable estimates of interrater reliability and similar patterns of correlation with demographic characteristics for both clustering and switching in healthy adults. However, two objective measures of word relatedness (interword interval timing and latent semantic analysis) confirm that our revisions capture additional information about the organization of entries in the lexical network.

Background: Word retrieval during verbal fluency tasks invokes both automatic and controlled cognitive processes. A distinction has been made between the generation of words clusters and switches between such clusters on verbal fluency tasks. Clusters, defined by the reporting of contiguous words that constitute semantic or phonemic subcategories, are thought to reflect relatively automatic processing. In contrast, switching from one subcategory to another is thought to require a more controlled, effortful form of cognitive processing. Objective: In this single-blind, sham-controlled experiment, we investigated whether anodal and cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) can differentially modify controlled or automatic processes that support lexical retrieval, as assessed by clustering and switching on verbal fluency tasks, in 24 healthy right-handed adults. Methods: Participants were randomly assigned to receive 1 mA of either anodal (excitatory) or cathodal (inhibitory) active tDCS over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in addition to sham stimulation over the same region in counterbalanced order. Participants engaged in various cognitive activities during the first 23 min of stimulation. Then, during the final segment of each 30-min session, they completed letter- and category-cued word fluency tasks. Results: Participants reported more words on category-cued word fluency tasks during anodal than sham stimulation (25.9 vs. 23.0 words; p = 0.055). They also showed a net increase in the number of clustered words during anodal stimulation compared to a net decrease during cathodal stimulation (1.3 vs. −1.5 words; p = 0.038). Conclusion: tDCS can selectively alter automatic aspects of speeded lexical retrieval in a polarity-dependent fashion during a category-guided fluency task.

Recent years have seen the advent and proliferation of the use of implicit techniques to study learning and cognition. One such application is the use of event-related potentials (ERPs) to assess receptive vocabulary knowledge. Other implicit assessment techniques that may be well-suited to other testing situations or to use with varied participant groups have not been used as widely to study receptive vocabulary knowledge. We sought to develop additional implicit techniques to study receptive vocabulary knowledge that could augment the knowledge gained from the use of the ERP technique. Specifically, we used a simple forced-choice paradigm to assess receptive vocabulary knowledge in normal adult participants using eye movement monitoring (EM) and pupillometry. In the same group of participants, we also used an N400 semantic incongruity ERP paradigm to assess their knowledge of two groups of words: those expected to be known to the participants (high-frequency, familiar words) and those expected to be unknown (low-frequency, unfamiliar words). All three measures showed reliable differences between the known and unknown words. EM and pupillometry thus may provide insight into receptive vocabulary knowledge similar to that from ERPs. The development of additional implicit assessment techniques may increase the feasibility of receptive vocabulary testing across a wider range of participant groups and testing situations, and may make the conduct of such testing more accessible to a wider range of researchers, clinicians, and educators.