Executive, language, or both? An examination of the construct validity of verbal fluency measures

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate whether phonemic and semantic verbal fluency were more related to aspects of language processing than executive functioning (EF). An exploratory factor analysis was performed on a college-aged sample of 320 healthy participants using principle axis factoring and promax rotation on nine measures of EF. The first three factors, labeled: working memory, fluid reasoning, and shifting/updating, were extracted and used as latent executive variables. Participants were also split into low, medium, and high phonemic and semantic verbal fluency ability groups. Phonemic and semantic fluency correlated similarly across all three extracted EF factors and word knowledge. Using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVAs), there was a main effect for both phonemic and semantic verbal fluency groups and all outcome variables (i.e., the EF factors and word knowledge). Tukey HSD post hoc analyses showed that those in the low verbal fluency ability groups had significantly lower scores across all outcome measures compared to the high verbal fluency ability groups. Across all analyses, semantic fluency had stronger relations with the EF factors, signifying a large executive component involved in the task. Both phonemic and semantic fluency were similarly related to multiple dimensions of EF and word knowledge and should be considered executive language tasks.

Prospective Associations of Erythrocyte Composition and Dietary Intake of n-3 and n-6 PUFA with Measures of Cognitive Function

“…In a study of healthy elderly adults, baseline plasma EPA plus DHA was protective against cognitive decline as measured with the Trail Making Test Part B score, but not with the MMSE score, over a 4-year follow-up [ 72 ]. Tests of verbal fluency appear to contain a large executive functioning component [ 73 ] and in a study of middle aged adults, both cholesteryl ester and phospholipid n -3 compositions were associated with better scores on the Word Fluency Test after 6-year follow-up [ 74 ].…”

Age-dependent contribution of domain-general networks to semantic cognition

“…Hence, these regions may not be language-specific but appear to strongly contribute to a task that requires goal-directed controlled access to semantic memory while monitoring the verbal articulation of words that match the semantic categories. Further support for the contribution of executive functions to semantic fluency stems from behavioral studies that associated cognitive flexibility, inhibition, working memory, and attention with a successful performance (Aita et al, 2018; Amunts et al, 2020; Gordon et al, 2018). Although activations in regions of the MDN have been reported by studies on semantic fluency repeatedly (Heinzel et al, 2013; Nagels et al, 2012; Whitney et al, 2009), to our knowledge, this is the first investigation that related them to a cognitive control network in an integrative manner (in the direct comparison of language and cognitive control networks).…”

Children’s development of semantic verbal fluency during summer vacation versus during formal schooling

“…Several factors are considered to have an impact on SVF ability by authors with different theoretical perspectives, including intact lexical knowledge [21], retrieval of words [22,23], efficient search strategy [21], as well as executive functions such as inhibition [24], flexibility [25], working memory, and shifting [26]. Assessment of SVF can give us insight into the strength of links between elements of the lexical system [27].…”