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The effect of age and sex on clustering and switching during speeded verbal fluency tasks

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2009

SHAWNDA LANTING ,
NICOLE HAUGRUD  and
MARGARET CROSSLEY
SHAWNDA LANTING*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
NICOLE HAUGRUD
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
MARGARET CROSSLEY
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
*
*Correspondence and reprint requests to: Shawnda Lanting, Department of Psychology, 9 Campus Drive, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, S7N 5A5, Canada. E-mail: shawnda.lanting@usask.ca
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Abstract

Past research has been inconsistent with regard to the effects of normal aging and sex on strategy use during verbal fluency performance. In the present study, both Troyer et al.’s (1997) and Abwender et al.’s (2001) scoring methods were used to measure switching and clustering strategies in 60 young and 72 older adults, equated on verbal ability. Young adults produced more words overall and switched more often during both phonemic and semantic fluency tasks, but performed similarly to older adults on measures of clustering. Although there were no sex differences in total words produced on either fluency task, males produced larger clusters on both tasks, and females switched more frequently than males on the semantic but not on the phonemic fluency task. Although clustering strategies appear to be relatively age-insensitive, age-related changes in switching strategies resulted in fewer overall words produced by older adults. This study provides evidence of age and sex differences in strategy use during verbal fluency tests, and illustrates the utility of combining Troyer’s and Abwender’s scoring procedures with in-depth categorization of clustering to understand interactions between age and sex during semantic fluency tasks. (JINS, 2009, 15, 196–204.)

Keywords

Verbal fluencyNormal agingSex differencesClusteringSwitchingLanguage
Type
Research Articles
Information
Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , March 2009 , pp. 196 - 204
Copyright
Copyright © INS 2009

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