Performance of 7- to 95-year-old individuals in a Chinese 
version of the category fluency test

Chan, Agnes S.; Poon, Maggie W.

doi:10.1017/s135561779956606x

Cited by 75 publications

(68 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…Nevertheless, we failed to find a gender effect, as did our previous survey (24). Other studies have not found a gender effect, especially when results by gender were corrected for educational level (29).…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 86%

Category fluency test: effects of age, gender and education on total scores, clustering and switching in Brazilian Portuguese-speaking subjects

Brucki

Rocha

2004

Braz J Med Biol Res

263

181

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Verbal fluency tests are used as a measure of executive functions and language, and can also be used to evaluate semantic memory. We analyzed the influence of education, gender and age on scores in a verbal fluency test using the animal category, and on number of categories, clustering and switching. We examined 257 healthy participants (152 females and 105 males) with a mean age of 49.42 years (SD = 15.75) and having a mean educational level of 5.58 (SD = 4.25) years. We asked them to name as many animals as they could. Analysis of variance was performed to determine the effect of demographic variables. No significant effect of gender was observed for any of the measures. However, age seemed to influence the number of category changes, as expected for a sensitive frontal measure, after being controlled for the effect of education. Educational level had a statistically significant effect on all measures, except for clustering. Subject performance (mean number of animals named) according to schooling was: illiterates, 12.1; 1 to 4 years, 12.3; 5 to 8 years, 14.0; 9 to 11 years, 16.7, and more than 11 years, 17.8. We observed a decrease in performance in these five educational groups over time (more items recalled during the first 15 s, followed by a progressive reduction until the fourth interval). We conclude that education had the greatest effect on the category fluency test in this Brazilian sample. Therefore, we must take care in evaluating performance in lower educational subjects.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 86%

Category fluency test: effects of age, gender and education on total scores, clustering and switching in Brazilian Portuguese-speaking subjects

Brucki

Rocha

2004

Braz J Med Biol Res

263

181

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“…The frontal lobe undergoes substantial shrinkage with age relative to other regions [23] and decreased frontal function has been associated with normal aging on neuropsychological tests [24,25] . Category fluency decreases with healthy aging [26,27] , possibly due to its frontal component [27] . One intriguing possibility to explain the findings of intact categorical clustering into old age [16,18,19] is that perhaps the emphasis on categorization throughout one's life in Western society protects the strategy against age-related declines.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Categorical Organization in Free Recall across Culture and Age

Gutchess¹,

Yoon

Luo

et al. 2006

Gerontology

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participants' native language. In experiment 1, the words were strong category associates, and in experiment 2, the words were weak category associates. Participants recalled all the words they could remember, and the number of words recalled and degree of clustering by category were analyzed. Results: As predicted, cultural differences emerged for the elderly, with East-Asians using categories less than Americans during recall of highly-associated category exemplars (experiment 1). For recall of low-associate exemplars, East-Asians overall categorized less than Americans (experiment 2). Surprisingly, these differences in the use of categories did not lead to cultural differences in the number of words recalled. The expected effects of age were apparent with elderly recalling less than young, but in contrast to previous studies, elderly also categorized less than young. Conclusion: These studies provide support for the notion that cultural differences in categorical organization are larger for elderly adults than young, although culture did not impact the amount recalled. These data suggest that culture and age interact to influence cognition. Key WordsCulture ؒ Aging ؒ Memory ؒ Recall ؒ Categorization ؒ Cognition Abstract Background: Cross-cultural differences in cognition suggest that Westerners use categories more than Easterners, but these differences have only been investigated in young adults. Objective: The contributions of cognitive resource and the extent of cultural exposure are explored for free recall by investigating cross-cultural differences in categorical organization in younger and older adults. Cultural differences in the use of categories should be larger for elderly than young because categorization is a well-practiced strategy for Westerners, but age-related cognitive resource limitations may make the strategy difficult for elderly Easterners to implement. Therefore, we expect that cultural differences in categorization will be magnified in elderly adults relative to younger adults, with Americans categorizing more than Chinese. Methods: Across two studies, 112 young and 112 elderly drawn from two cultures (American and Chinese) encoded words presented in their native language. One word list contained categorically-unrelated words and the other, categorically-related words; both lists were presented in the

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“…Verbal fluency tasks are commonly used in neuropsychological assessment, since they are easy to administer (Carnero, Lendínez, Maestre, & Zunzunegui, 1999;Kempler, Teng, Dick, Taussig, & Davis, 1998), sensitive to brain damage and cognitive deterioration (Acevedo et al, 2000;Bruyer & Tuyumbu, 1980;Carnero et al, 1999;Chan & Poon, 1999;Joanette & Goulet, 1986;Kempler et al, 1998;Ratcliff et al, 1998;Rosen, 1980;Ruff, Light, Parker, & Levin, 1997;Stuss et al, 1998;Tombaugh, Kozak, & Rees, 1999;Troyer, Moscovitch, Winocur, Alexander, & Stuss, 1998) and can be applied to different cultural groups (Kempler et al, 1998). Verbal fluency tasks have also been applied in the investigation of illiterate and other low-level educational groups because they do not require reading or writing skills.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effects of Literacy and Education on the Quantitative and Qualitative Aspects of Semantic Verbal Fluency

Silva¹,

Petersson²,

Faísca³

et al. 2004

Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology

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Semantic verbal fluency tasks are commonly used in neuropsychological assessment. Investigations of the influence of level of literacy have not yielded consistent results in the literature. This prompted us to investigate the ecological relevance of task specifics, in particular, the choice of semantic criteria used. Two groups of literate and illiterate subjects were compared on two verbal fluency tasks using different semantic criteria. The performance on a food criterion (supermarket fluency task), considered more ecologically relevant for the two literacy groups, and an animal criterion (animal fluency task) were compared. The data were analysed using both quantitative and qualitative measures. The quantitative analysis indicated that the two literacy groups performed equally well on the supermarket fluency task. In contrast, results differed significantly during the animal fluency task. The qualitative analyses indicated differences between groups related to the strategies used, especially with respect to the animal fluency task. The overall results suggest that there is not a substantial difference between literate and illiterate subjects related to the fundamental workings of semantic memory. However, there is indication that the content of semantic memory reflects differences in shared cultural background -in other words, formal education -, as indicated by the significant interaction between level of literacy and semantic criterion.

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Performance of 7- to 95-year-old individuals in a Chinese version of the category fluency test

Cited by 75 publications

References 63 publications

Category fluency test: effects of age, gender and education on total scores, clustering and switching in Brazilian Portuguese-speaking subjects

Category fluency test: effects of age, gender and education on total scores, clustering and switching in Brazilian Portuguese-speaking subjects

Categorical Organization in Free Recall across Culture and Age

The Effects of Literacy and Education on the Quantitative and Qualitative Aspects of Semantic Verbal Fluency

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