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- Title
A Large-Scale Semantic Analysis of Verbal Fluency Across the Aging Spectrum: Data From the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging.
- Authors
Taler, Vanessa; Johns, Brendan T; Jones, Michael N
- Abstract
Objectives The present study aimed to characterize changes in verbal fluency performance across the lifespan using data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA). Methods We examined verbal fluency performance in a large sample of adults aged 45–85 (n = 12,686). Data are from the Tracking cohort of the CLSA. Participants completed a computer-assisted telephone interview that included an animal fluency task, in which they were asked to name as many animals as they could in 1 min. We employed a computational modeling approach to examine the factors driving performance on this task. Results We found that the sequence of items produced was best predicted by their semantic neighborhood, and that pairwise similarity accounted for most of the variance in participant analyses. Moreover, the total number of items produced declined slightly with age, and older participants produced items of higher frequency and denser semantic neighborhood than younger adults. Discussion These findings indicate subtle changes in the way people perform this task as they age. The use of computational models allowed for a large increase in the amount of variance accounted for in this data set over standard assessment types, providing important theoretical insights into the aging process.
- Subjects
CANADA; AGING; INTERVIEWING; LONGITUDINAL method; VERBAL behavior; TASK performance; LATENT semantic analysis
- Publication
Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences & Social Sciences, 2020, Vol 75, Issue 9, pe221
- ISSN
1079-5014
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1093/geronb/gbz003