Gender Affects Word Retrieval of Certain Categories in Semantic Fluency Tasks

Capitani, Erminio; Laiacona, Marcella; Barbarotto, Riccardo

doi:10.1016/s0010-9452(08)70800-1

Cited by 140 publications

(121 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…This finding is broadly consistent with the prior demonstrations of a sex difference in semantic processing, with men and women exhibiting superior processing of artifacts and natural objects respectively (Barbarotto et al, 2002;Capitani et al, 1999;Laws, 1999). For example, in the semantic fluency task administered by Capitani et al (1999), men produced more instances of the category TOOLS, whereas women produced more instances of FRUITS. Men's superior fluency with artifact categories may, in fact, be related to the greater inclusivity of their artifact categories.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

“…Women provided more vague judgments than men in both artifact and natural categories. Although prior studies have demonstrated sex differences in naming (Capitani et al, 1999;Laws, 1999), recognition (Barbarotto et al, 2002), and semantic priming (Bermeitinger et al, 2008) of artifact and natural objects, the present study provided the first demonstration of a sex difference in the categorization of such objects. So whereas prior studies have revealed differences in the speed and/or accuracy of participants' responses, the present study showed a sex difference in actual judgments.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 60%

“…Whereas women name natural objects faster and more fluently, men name artifacts faster and more fluently (Capitani, Laiacona, & Barbarotto, 1999;Laws, 1999). Women also recognize natural objects more accurately, whereas men recognize artifacts more accurately (Barbarotto, Laiacona, Macchi, & Capitani, 2002).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sex Differences in Semantic Categorization

2011

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Sex differences in certain cognitive abilities, including aspects of semantic processing, are well established. However, there have been no reports investigating a sex difference in semantic categorization. A total of 55 men and 58 women each judged 25 exemplars of natural categories (e.g., FRUITS) and 25 of artifact categories (e.g., TOOLS) as a nonmember, partial member, or full member of the given category. Participants also rated confidence for each judgment. Women provided a greater number vague (partial member) judgments, whereas men provided more inclusive (full member) judgments of artifacts but more exclusive (nonmember) judgments of natural categories. The sex difference in vagueness was observed across domains (Cohen's d = .56). Confidence predicted categorization among both men and women, such that more confident participants exhibited fewer vague category judgments. However, men and women were equally confident in their category judgments, and confidence failed to explain the sex difference in categorization. Men and women appear to categorize the same common objects in systematically different ways.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 60%

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Sex Differences in Semantic Categorization

2011

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“…Capitani, Laiacona, & Barbarotto, 1999;Laiacona, Barbarotto, & Capitani, 2006), a preliminary analysis was conducted to investigate whether gender affected quantitative properties of the data. This was necessary due to there being an over-representation of female participants in the total sample, which might bias the data if such differences were present.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Category norm data and relationships with lexical frequency and typicality within verb semantic categories

2011

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The aim of the present study was to expand the scope of category norm and typicality data to include verbs for use when investigating semantic memory in fields such as linguistics, psychology, and aphasiology. Two experiments were conducted. In the first, participants were asked to list verbs within 10 semantic categories (e.g. breaking, cleaning, cooking, etc.) and 10 noun categories (e.g. animals, fruit, tools, etc.). In the second experiment, participants were asked to rate the typicality of verbs within 8 of the previously investigated verb categories. Although participants listed fewer verbs in verb categories than nouns in noun categories, the overall patterns with regard to correlation analyses between production frequency, mean rank of responses, lexical frequency, and typicality were consistent with those observed in noun categories. These patterns are also consistent with those observed in previous research. Potential similarities and differences between nouns and verbs, as well as future applications of such data, are discussed.

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“…Monte Carlo simulations indicate that the criteria for dissociations have a low Type I error rate regardless of the N for the control sample, the correlation between tasks, and the distributional characteristics of the control data (i.e., they are robust to departures from normality; Crawford & Garthwaite, 2005b;Crawford et al, 2006). Several studies of healthy controls and neurological patients (including AD patients) have revealed that men perform better with man-made items and women better with natural items (especially fruit and vegetables; see Capitani et al, 1999Capitani et al, , 2005; Laiacona et al, 404 K.R. Laws et al 1998;Laws, 1999Laws, , 2000see Gainotti, 2005 andLaiacona et al, 2006, for reviews).…”

Section: Individual Case Analysesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A predominance of category deficits for living things in Alzheimer's disease and Lewy body dementia

Laws

Crawford

Gnoato

et al. 2007

J. Inter. Neuropsych. Soc.

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Although semantic memory impairment is well documented in patients with dementia of the Alzheimer's type, questions remain as to whether the deficit extends to other forms of dementia and whether it differentially affects different domains of knowledge. We examined category naming on two tasks (picture naming and naming-to-description) in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD: n 5 11), Lewy body dementia (DLB: n 5 11) and healthy elderly matched controls (n 5 22). The DLB and AD groups showed significantly worse naming on both tasks, although the AD patients were more impaired than the DLB patients. Like some AD patients, some DLB patients showed evidence of category-specific naming deficits, and strikingly, all 25 significant category dissociations were for living things. The latter finding accords with the preponderance of living deficits previously documented for AD patients, but extends this finding to DLB patients. The implications of this category bias is discussed in relation to relevant models of category specificity. (JINS, 2007, 13, 401-409.)

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Gender Affects Word Retrieval of Certain Categories in Semantic Fluency Tasks

Cited by 140 publications

References 16 publications

Sex Differences in Semantic Categorization

Sex Differences in Semantic Categorization

Category norm data and relationships with lexical frequency and typicality within verb semantic categories

A predominance of category deficits for living things in Alzheimer's disease and Lewy body dementia

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