A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal

Systematic administration and analysis of verbal fluency tasks: Preliminary evidence for reliable exploration of processes underlying task performance




AuthorsLehtinen Nana, Luotonen Ida, Kautto Anna

PublisherRoutledge

Publication year2023

JournalApplied Neuropsychology Adult

Volume30

Issue6

First page 727

Last page739

ISSN2327-9095

eISSN2327-9109

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1080/23279095.2021.1973471

Web address https://doi.org/10.1080/23279095.2021.1973471

Self-archived copy’s web addresshttps://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/67258961


Abstract

Verbal fluency (VF) tasks are typically scored by the number of acceptable words generated within an allotted time (i.e., total score). However, total scores do not provide insight into verbal and executive processes underlying VF task performance. Further analyses have been implemented to increase the analytical power of VF tasks, but systematic scoring guidelines are needed. We generated instructions for administration, scoring, and analyses of total scores, errors, temporal parameters, clustering, and switching with strong inter-rater reliability. To investigate the reliability of the proposed analysis, we modeled the performance of Finnish-speaking older adults (N = 50) in phonemic (/k/, /a/, and /p/) and semantic (animals) categories. Our results are in line with previous studies: We observed a higher performance on semantic than phonemic fluency (p ≤ 0.001, d = 0.91) and significant effects for education (p ≤ 0.001, d = 1.11) and gender (p ≤ 0.001, d = −1.11), but not for age (p = 0.10, d = 0.48). Most errors were repetitions. Performance declined over the allotted time frame as measured in 15-s segments (all ps < 0.001 with medium to large effect sizes). Task congruent clustering and switching were productive strategies (all ps < 0.001 with large effect sizes), and participants generated task discrepant clusters in both phonemic (p = 0.004, d = 0.69) and semantic tasks (p = 0.66, d = 0.18). The results substantiate the proposed method, providing evidence that these guidelines are a reliable starting point for VF task performance analyses in various clinical populations investigating VF task performance in depth.


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Funding information in the publication
This work was supported in part by the Alfred Kordelin Foundation under a grant awarded to the first author and University of Turku Graduate School wages awarded to the second and third authors, as well as an anonymous endowed fund to the University of Turku, Department of Speech-Language Pathology.


Last updated on 2025-14-02 at 12:20