Influence of age and education on the processing of clustering and switching in verbal fluency tasks

Abstract

Verbal fluency (VF) is a widely used tool in neuropsychological assessment.Objective:We aimed to investigate the influence of age and educational level on clustering and switching in three VF modalities: phonemic (PVF), semantic (SVF) and unconstrained (UVF). We evaluated type of cluster, mean cluster size, and quantity of clusters, intersections, and returns. A total of 260 healthy subjects were assessed.Methods:Participants were divided into three age groups: young adults (18 to 39 years), middle-aged adults (40 to 59 years) and older adults (60 to 80 years) and into two groups of educational level: 1-8 years (low), 9 years or more (high). A two-way ANOVA analysis was conducted to analyze the effect of age and educational level and its interactions. A repeated measures ANOVA was performed to verify the performance during the task.Results:A main effect of age was detected on the UVF and SVF scores for total switches, taxonomic clusters, and for the total semantic clusters on the SVF. There was a greater effect of educational level on total switches (UVF, PFV and SVF), taxonomic clusters (UVF and SVF), thematic clusters and total semantic cluster (UVF), phonemic and mixed clusters (PVF), mean cluster size (UVF and SVF) and intersections (SVF). Educational level had a greater effect on all three VF tasks.

Verbal fluency in Alzheimer’s disease and mild cognitive impairment in individuals with low educational level and its relationship with reading and writing habits

“…SF tasks consisted of generating words for two different categories (animals and clothes) during one minute for each category, while the PF task asked participants to say as many words as possible during one minute using the phoneme /p/. Clustering and switching analyses Clustering and switching analyses were conducted according to the methods proposed by Troyer 32 and Abwender et al, 33 Gonçalves et al's guidelines, 34 and Hermes-Pereira et al 6 We considered clusters as groups of two or more words belonging to the same category, which could be phonemic, semantic (taxonomic or thematic), or mixed (phonemic and semantic). The criteria for grouping each type of cluster were:…”

“…Returning and reapplying not only imply that the individual has to remember previously uttered words, thus having to use episodic and working memory capacity, but also demand attention and cognitive flexibility to keep producing words within the same category. 6 Some authors have argued that SF tends to be more sensitive for AD diagnosis compared to PF. [7][8][9] This assumption could result from the fact that the neural correlates that underlie semantic processing are usually associated with degraded areas found in AD.…”

“…3 The progression of healthy aging to dementia must be considered a continuum, both in terms of the slow manifestation of the impairment of cognitive functions, as well as functional limitation. 4 Originally, mild cognitive impairment (MCI) was considered a condition in which someone has minor cognitive decline, not severe enough to interfere significantly with daily life and Verbal fluency in Alzheimer's disease and mild cognitive impairment in individuals with low educational level and its relationship with reading and writing habits Bruna Tessaro 1 , Andressa Hermes-Pereira 2 , Lucas Porcello Schilling 3,4 , Rochele Paz Fonseca 5,6 , Renata Kochhann 5 , Lilian Cristine Hübner 1,6 ABSTRACT. Verbal fluency (VF) has contributed to building cognitive maps as well as differentiating healthy populations from those with dementia.…”

Fluência verbal de adultos e idosos do Distrito Federal: proposta normativa piloto

“…With regard to performance on verbal fluency tests according to the Brazilian typical aging process, studies conducted in the South and Southeast regions of the country have shown mixed results. Some authors have reported better performance among younger individuals compared to older adults for number of words produced (3,5) , whereas other studies found no significant differences between age groups (1,4,6) .…”

“…The verbal fluency test has been widely used to determine whether changes in language-cognitive profile occur during the process of normal aging (1)(2)(3)(4)(5) . In Brazil, the older population aged >65 years is growing rapidly, demographic data demonstrate a significant increase in life expectancy associated with a decrease in birth rate (6) .…”