title: Action (verb) fluency: test-retest reliability, normative standards, and construct validity.
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.
authors.affiliation: HIV Neurobehavioral Research Center, Department of Psychiatry (0603-H), University of California, San Diego, 150 W. Washington St., 2nd floor, San Diego, CA 92103, USA. spwoods@ucsd.edu
authors.forename: Steven Paul
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Woods
authors.forename: J Cobb
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Scott
authors.forename: Danielle A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Sires
authors.forename: Igor
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Grant
authors.forename: Robert K
authors.initials: RK
authors.lastname: Heaton
authors.forename: Alexander I
authors.initials: AI
authors.lastname: Tröster
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D003072:Cognition Disorders; D003710:Demography; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012737:Sex Factors; D014705:Verbal Behavior / Q000502:physiology*