Pervasive influence of semantics in letter and category fluency: A multidimensional approach

We used multidimensional statistical procedures to study semantic and lexical processes underlying word retrieval in verbal-fluency performance. Forty healthy participants were given a two-choice letter task (i.e., generate items beginning with the letter ‘A’ or ‘F’, in any order) and a two-choice c...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Brain and language 2003-12, Vol.87 (3), p.400-411
Main Authors: Schwartz, Sophie, Baldo, Juliana, Graves, Roger E, Brugger, Peter
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Animate/inanimate
Biological and medical sciences
Cluster Analysis
Cognition
Cognitive maps
Cognitive processes
Correspondence analysis
Female
Frontal lobe
Frontal Lobe - physiology
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Humans
Language
Male
Miscellaneous
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Semantic memory
Semantics
Spreading activation
Verbal Behavior
Verbal fluency
Visual Perception
Vocabulary
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Summary:We used multidimensional statistical procedures to study semantic and lexical processes underlying word retrieval in verbal-fluency performance. Forty healthy participants were given a two-choice letter task (i.e., generate items beginning with the letter ‘A’ or ‘F’, in any order) and a two-choice category task (i.e., generate animal or fruit names, in any order). Using correspondence analysis (CoA) and hierarchical clustering (HC), we found evidence of prominent semantic organization in both letter and category fluency. For example, a striking categorical segregation between animate and inanimate entities emerged during the letter task. Analysis of inter-item times revealed strong sequential priming effects in both tasks. Taken together, these results indicate that semantic facilitation is pervasive in word retrieval processes, even in the letter-fluency task, and therefore suggest that the traditional view of letter fluency as a purely phonemically based task should be revised. Finally, our findings may help explain patterns of verbal-fluency measures obtained in focal brain lesion patients.
ISSN:0093-934X
1090-2155
DOI:10.1016/S0093-934X(03)00141-X