Graph analysis of semantic word association among children, adults, and the elderly

Zortéa, Maxciel; Menegola, Bruno; Villavicencio, Aline; Salles, Jerusa Fumagalli de

doi:10.1590/s0102-79722014000100011

Cited by 35 publications

(45 citation statements)

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“…Also, the data can be modeled as a network by analyzing graphs, using computing techniques (Albert & Barabasi, 2002). This method has been used to analyze word association (Steyvers & Tenenbaum, 2005;Zortea, Menegola, Villavicencio, & Salles, 2014), as well as in studies of clustering and switching analysis in the SVF tasks of adults with right hemisphere lesions (Becker et al, 2014) because it provides greater understanding of the semantic associations between words and lexical-semantic differences between individuals.…”

Section: Final Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Methodological Criteria for Scoring Clustering and Switching in Verbal Fluency Tasks

Becker

Salles

2016

Psico-USF

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The objective of this study was to describe an adaptation to Brazilian Portuguese of the methodological criteria for analysis of clustering and switching in semantic verbal fluency (SVF) and phonemic verbal fluency (PVF) tasks. The adaptation process consisted of six steps, including the selection of the clustering and switching variables based on data from a sample of 419 children and the analysis of inter-rater reliability (six raters). The following variables were scored: the total number of words generated the raw number of clusters, the mean cluster size, and the raw number of switches. There was a significant association between raters (intra-class correlation coefficients between 0.95 and 0.99), showing that the analytical method was reliable. Our study provides an evaluation of SVF and PVF tasks that goes beyond the overall score, making it possible to investigate the cognitive processes underlying this neuropsychological function. Keywords: semantic verbal fluency, phonemic verbal fluency, clustering, switching Critérios Metodológicos para Análises de Clustering e Switching em tarefas de Fluência VerbalResumo Este artigo objetiva apresentar uma adaptação ao português brasileiro dos critérios metodológicos para análises de clustering e switching em tarefas de fluência verbal semântica (FVS) e ortográfica (FVO). São descritas as seis etapas realizadas no processo de adaptação destes critérios, incluindo o processo de extração das variáveis de clustering e switching a partir de dados de amostras de crianças (N=419) e a análise da fidedignidade da concordância entre juízes (N=6). As variáveis avaliadas são número total de palavras evocadas, número de clusters, média do tamanho dos clusters e número de switches. Houve forte associação entre juízes (Coeficientes de Correlação Intraclasse entre 0,95 a 0,99) indicando fidedignidade do método de análise. Este estudo contribui com a avaliação da FVS e FVO para além do escore geral, permitindo investigar os processos cognitivos subjacentes a esta função neuropsicológica. Palavras-chave: fluência verbal semântica, fluência verbal ortográfica, agrupamentos Criterios Metodológicos para Análisis de Estrategias de Agrupación en Tareas de Fluidez VerbalResumen Este artículo presenta una adaptación para el portugués brasileño de criterios metodológicos de análisis de estrategias de agrupación (clustering y switching) en tareas de fluidez verbal semántica (FVS) y fluidez verbal fonológica (FVF). El proceso de adaptación de estos criterios consiste en seis pasos, incluyendo el proceso de extracción de las variables de clustering y switching de una muestra formada por 419 niños y el análisis de fiabilidad entre seis jueces. Se investigaron las siguientes variables: número total de palabras generadas, número de grupos de palabras (clusters), tamaño medio de los grupos y número de saltos (switches). Hubo una fuerte asociación entre jueces (coeficientes de correlación intraclase entre 0,95 y 0,99), indicando así la fiabilidad del método analítico. Este estudio contribu...

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Section: Final Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Methodological Criteria for Scoring Clustering and Switching in Verbal Fluency Tasks

Becker

Salles

2016

Psico-USF

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“…Our framework emphasizes the need for interdisciplinary collaboration between linguistics, psychology, and neuroscience to generate insights into the ecological and computational basis of the aging mental lexicon. and less efficient (i.e., the shortest path length between any two words in the network is greater relative to those of younger adults) ( [17][18][19]; Figure 1).…”

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“…In what follows, we review past evidence for the role of such factors and discuss the need to assess the relative contribution of each in order to understand the aging lexicon. [17][18][19]. There is now converging evidence that although network size appears to grow continuously across the life span [79], degree and shortest path length show mirrored nonlinear trends, with degree increasing across childhood and decreasing across adulthood and shortest path length decreasing across childhood and increasing across adulthood [17][18][19].…”

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confidence: 99%

“…[17][18][19]. There is now converging evidence that although network size appears to grow continuously across the life span [79], degree and shortest path length show mirrored nonlinear trends, with degree increasing across childhood and decreasing across adulthood and shortest path length decreasing across childhood and increasing across adulthood [17][18][19]. The findings for the clustering coefficient are more mixed [19]; however, the evidence points towards monotonically declining clustering coefficients throughout the life span [17,18].…”

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New Perspectives on the Aging Lexicon

Wulff

Deyne

Jones

et al. 2019

Trends in Cognitive Sciences

121

126

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The field of cognitive aging has seen considerable advances in describing the linguistic and semantic changes that happen during the adult life span to uncover the structure of the mental lexicon (i.e., the mental repository of lexical and conceptual representations). Nevertheless, there is still debate concerning the sources of these changes, including the role of environmental exposure and several cognitive mechanisms associated with learning, representation, and retrieval of information. We review the current status of research in this field and outline a framework that promises to assess the contribution of both ecological and psychological aspects to the aging lexicon. Cognitive Aging and the Mental Lexicon There is consensus in the cognitive sciences that human development extends well beyond childhood and adolescence, and there has been remarkable empirical progress in the field of cognitive aging in past decades [1]. Nevertheless, the role of environmental and cognitive factors in age-related changes in the structure and processing of lexical and semantic representations (see Glossary) is still under debate. For example, age-related memory decline is commonly attributed to a decline in cognitive abilities [2,3], yet some researchers have proposed that massive exposure to language over the course of one's life leads to knowledge gains that may contribute to, if not fully account for, age-related memory deficits [4-6]. We argue that to resolve such debates we require an interdisciplinary approach that captures how information exposure across adulthood may change the way that we acquire, represent, and recall information. We summarize recent developments in the field (Figure 1, Table 1) and propose a conceptual framework (Figure 2, Key Figure) and associated research agenda that argues for combining ecological analyses, formal modeling, and large-scale empirical studies to shed light on the contents, structure, and neural basis of the aging mental lexicon in both health and disease. Mental Lexicon: Aging and Cognitive Performance The mental lexicon can be thought of as a repository of lexical and conceptual representations, composed of organized networks of semantic, phonological, orthographic, morphological, and other types of information [7]. The cognitive sciences have provided considerable knowledge about the computational (Box 1; [8-11]) and neural basis (Box 2; [12,13]) of lexical and semantic cognition, and there has been considerable interest in how such aspects of cognition change across adulthood and aging [14,15]. Past work on the aging lexicon emphasized the amount of information acquired across the life span (e.g., vocabulary gains across adulthood; [15]); however, new evaluations using graphbased approaches suggest that both quantity and structural aspects of representations differ between individuals [16] and change across the life span [17-19]. Such insights were gathered, for example, from a large-scale analysis of free association data from thousands of individuals [17], ranging from 10 to ...

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“…Past work on the aging lexicon emphasized the amount of information acquired across the life span (e.g., vocabulary gains across adulthood; [15]); however, new evaluations using graphbased approaches suggest that both quantity and structural aspects of representations differ between individuals [16] and change across the life span [17][18][19]. Such insights were gathered, for example, from a large-scale analysis of free association data from thousands of individuals [17], ranging from 10 to 84 years of age, using networks with words as nodes and edges defined by the strength of shared associations (Figure 1).…”

Section: Mental Lexicon: Aging and Cognitive Performancementioning

confidence: 99%

New Perspectives on the Aging Lexicon

Wulff¹,

Deyne²,

Jones³

et al. 2019

Preprint

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The field of cognitive aging has seen considerable advances in describing the linguistic and semantic changes that happen during the adult life span to uncover the structure of the mental lexicon (i.e., the mental repository of lexical and conceptual representations). Nevertheless, there is still debate concerning the sources of these changes, including the role of environmental exposure and several cognitive mechanisms associated with learning, representation, and retrieval of information. We review the current status of research in this field and outline a framework that promises to assess the contribution of both ecological and psychological aspects to the aging lexicon. Cognitive Aging and the Mental LexiconThere is consensus in the cognitive sciences that human development extends well beyond childhood and adolescence, and there has been remarkable empirical progress in the field of cognitive aging in past decades [1]. Nevertheless, the role of environmental and cognitive factors in age-related changes in the structure and processing of lexical and semantic representations (see Glossary) is still under debate. For example, age-related memory decline is commonly attributed to a decline in cognitive abilities [2,3], yet some researchers have proposed that massive exposure to language over the course of one's life leads to knowledge gains that may contribute to, if not fully account for, age-related memory deficits [4][5][6]. We argue that to resolve such debates we require an interdisciplinary approach that captures how information exposure across adulthood may change the way that we acquire, represent, and recall information. We summarize recent developments in the field (Figure 1, Table 1) and propose a conceptual framework (Figure 2, Key Figure) and associated research agenda that argues for combining ecological analyses, formal modeling, and large-scale empirical studies to shed light on the contents, structure, and neural basis of the aging mental lexicon in both health and disease. Mental Lexicon: Aging and Cognitive PerformanceThe mental lexicon can be thought of as a repository of lexical and conceptual representations, composed of organized networks of semantic, phonological, orthographic, morphological, and other types of information [7]. The cognitive sciences have provided considerable knowledge about the computational (Box 1; [8][9][10][11]) and neural basis (Box 2; [12,13]) of lexical and semantic cognition, and there has been considerable interest in how such aspects of cognition change across adulthood and aging [14,15].Past work on the aging lexicon emphasized the amount of information acquired across the life span (e.g., vocabulary gains across adulthood; [15]); however, new evaluations using graphbased approaches suggest that both quantity and structural aspects of representations differ between individuals [16] and change across the life span [17][18][19]. Such insights were gathered, for example, from a large-scale analysis of free association data from thousands of individuals [17], rangi...

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Graph analysis of semantic word association among children, adults, and the elderly

Cited by 35 publications

References 35 publications

Methodological Criteria for Scoring Clustering and Switching in Verbal Fluency Tasks

Methodological Criteria for Scoring Clustering and Switching in Verbal Fluency Tasks

New Perspectives on the Aging Lexicon

New Perspectives on the Aging Lexicon

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