Action (verb) fluency: Test-retest reliability, normative standards, and construct validity

Steven Paul Woods, J. Cobb Scott, Danielle A. Sires, Igor Grant, Robert K. Heaton, Alexander I. Tröster, J. Hampton Atkinson, J. Allen McCutchan, Thomas D. Marcotte, Mark R. Wallace, Ronald J. Ellis, Scott Letendre, Rachel Schrier, Mariana Cherner, Joseph Sadek, Corinna Young, Terry Jernigan, John Hesselink, Michael J. Taylor, Eliezer MasliahDianne Langford, Daniel R. Masys, Michelle Frybarger, Ian Abramson, Deborah Lazzaretto

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

160 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Action (verb) fluency is a newly developed verbal fluency task that requires the examinee to rapidly generate as many verbs (i.e., "things that people do") as possible within 1 min. Existing literature indicates that action fluency may be more sensitive to frontal-basal ganglia loop pathophysiology than traditional noun fluency tasks (e.g., animal fluency), which is consistent with the hypothesized neural dissociation between noun and verb retrieval. In the current study, a series of analyses were undertaken to examine the psychometric properties of action fluency in a sample of 174 younger healthy participants. The first set of analyses describes the development of demographically adjusted normative data for action fluency. Next, a group of hypothesis-driven correlational analyses reveals significant associations between action fluency and putative tests of executive functions, verbal working memory, verbal fluency, and information processing speed, but not between action fluency and tests of learning or constructional praxis. The final set of analyses demonstrates the test-retest stability of the action fluency test and provides standards for determining statistically reliable changes in performance. In sum, this study enhances the potential clinical applicability of action fluency by providing demographically adjusted normative data and demonstrating evidence for its reliability and construct validity.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)408-415
Number of pages8
JournalJournal of the International Neuropsychological Society
Volume11
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jul 2005
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus Subject Areas

  • General Neuroscience
  • Clinical Psychology
  • Clinical Neurology
  • Psychiatry and Mental health

PubMed: MeSH publication types

  • Comparative Study
  • Journal Article
  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

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Woods, S. P., Scott, J. C., Sires, D. A., Grant, I., Heaton, R. K., Tröster, A. I., Atkinson, J. H., McCutchan, J. A., Marcotte, T. D., Wallace, M. R., Ellis, R. J., Letendre, S., Schrier, R., Cherner, M., Sadek, J., Young, C., Jernigan, T., Hesselink, J., Taylor, M. J., ... Lazzaretto, D. (2005). Action (verb) fluency: Test-retest reliability, normative standards, and construct validity. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 11(4), 408-415. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1355617705050460