Document Type : Original Articles
Authors
1 Department of speech therapy, Faculty of rehabilitation sciences, Zahedan University of Medical sciences, Zahedan, Iran
2 Department of Speech and Language Pathology, School of Rehabilitation Sciences, Iran University of Medical Science, Tehran, Iran.
3 Department of Speech Therapy, Faculty of Rehabilitation Sciences, Hamedan University of Medical Sciences, Hamedan, Iran.
Abstract
Background: This study examined the effect of bilingualism on the processing of clustering and switching in verbal fluency tasks in Farsi-Balochi bilinguals.
Methods: Ninety participants entered this study, including 45 Farsi monolinguals and 45 Farsi-Balochi bilinguals. All participants were male university students between the ages of 18 to 24 years. Verbal fluency tests were performed and the clustering and switching scores were calculated. Data was analyzed in SPSS-16 software.
Results: The monolingual group obtained a score of 32.84 in the total semantic fluency task and 24.13 in the phonemic fluency task, while the bilingual group obtained 30.70 in the semantic task and 29.37 in the phonemic task. The number of switches between the clusters and the mean cluster size were 35.82 and 2.6 in the monolingual group and 38.65 and 2.26 in the bilingual group, respectively. The difference between groups in phonemic fluency, phonemic switching, and semantic clustering was significant (p˂0.05).
Discussion: The bilingual group performed better in phonemic fluency and switched more between the clusters. Meanwhile, the monolinguals produced more words in each cluster than the bilinguals.
Keywords
et al. Verbal fluency: Language or executive function measure?
Appl Neuropsych-Adul. 2016; 23(1): 29-34.
2. Ruff RM, Light RH, Parker SB, Levin HS. The psychological
construct of word fluency. Brain lang. 1997; 57(3): 394-405.
3. Luo L, Luk G, Bialystok E. Effect of language proficiency and
executive control on verbal fluency performance in bilinguals.
Cognition. 2010; 114(1): 29-41.
4. Pereira AH, Gonçalves AB, Holz M, Gonçalves HA, Kochhann R,
Joanette Y, et al. Influence of age and education on the processing
of clustering and switching in verbal fluency tasks. Dement
Neuropsychol. 2018; 12(4): 360-7.
5. Ebrahimipour M. The verbal fluency test. Tehran: Ghalame Elm;
2014.
6. Shao Z, Janse E, Visser K, Meyer AS. What do verbal fluency
tasks measure? Predictors of verbal fluency performance in older
adults. Front psychol. 2014; 5: 772.
7. Levelt WJ. Models of word production. Trends Cogn sci. 1999;
3(6): 223-32.
8. Troyer AK, Moscovitch M, Winocur G. Clustering and switching
as two components of verbal fluency: evidence from younger and
older healthy adults. neuropsychology. 1997; 11(1): 138.
9. Troyer AK, Moscovitch M, Winocur G, Alexander MP, Stuss
D. Clustering and switching on verbal fluency: The effects of
focal frontal-and temporal-lobe lesions. Neuropsychologia. 1998;
36(6): 499-504.
10. Lanting S, Haugrud N, Crossley M. The effect of age and sex on
clustering and switching during speeded verbal fluency tasks. J
Int Neuropsychol Soc. 2009; 15(2): 196-204.
11. Iskandar S, Murphy KJ, Baird AD, West R, Armilio M, Craik FI,
et al. Interacting effects of age and time of day on verbal fluency
performance and intraindividual variability. Aging Neuropsychol
Cogn. 2016; 23(1): 1-17.
12. St-Hilaire A, Hudon C, Vallet GT, Bherer L, Lussier M, Gagnon
J-F, et al. Normative data for phonemic and semantic verbal
fluency test in the adult French–Quebec population and validation
study in Alzheimer’s disease and depression. Clin Neuropsychol.
2016; 30(7): 1126-50.
13. Hazin I, Leite G, Oliveira RM, Alencar JC, Fichman HC, Marques
PdN, et al. Brazilian normative data on letter and category fluency
tasks: effects of gender, age, and geopolitical region. Front psychol.
2016; 7: 684.
14. Van Der Elst W VBM, Van Breukelen GJ, Jolles J. Normative
data for the Animal, Profession and Letter M Naming verbal
fluency tests for Dutch speaking participants and the effects of
age, education, and sex. J Int Neuropsychol Soc. 2006; 12(1): 80-9.
15. Friesen DC, Luo L, Luk G, Bialystok E. Proficiency and control in
verbal fluency performance across the lifespan for monolinguals
and bilinguals. Lang Cogn Neurosci. 2015; 30(3): 238-50.
16. Weiss EM, Ragland JD, Brensinger CM, Bilker WB,
Deisenhammer EA, Delazer M. Sex differences in clustering
and switching in verbal fluency tasks. J Int Neuropsychol Soc.
2006; 12(4): 502-9.
17. Portocarrero JS, Burright RG, Donovick PJ. Vocabulary and verbal
fluency of bilingual and monolingual college students. Arch Clin
Neuropsychol. 2007; 22(3): 415-22.
18. Rosselli M, Ardila A, Araujo K, Weekes VA, Caracciolo V, Padilla
M, et al. Verbal fluency and repetition skills in healthy older
Spanish-English bilinguals. Appl Neuropsychol. 2000;7(1):17-24.
19. Bialystok E, Craik FI, Luk G. Lexical access in bilinguals: Effects
of vocabulary size and executive control. J Neurolinguistics.
2008; 21(6): 522-38.
20. Gollan TH, Montoya RI, Werner GA. Semantic and letter fluency
in Spanish-English bilinguals. Neuropsychology. 2002; 16(4): 562.
21. Fernandes MA, Craik F, Bialystok E, Kreuger S. Effects of
bilingualism, aging, and semantic relatedness on memory under
divided attention. Can J Exp Psychol 2007; 61(2): 128.
22. Gollan TH, Montoya RI, Fennema-Notestine C, Morris SK.
Bilingualism affects picture naming but not picture classification.
Mem cogn. 2005; 33(7): 1220-34.
23. Ansari NN, Naghdi S, Hasson S, Valizadeh L, Jalaie S. Validation
of a Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) for the Persian
population: a pilot study. Appl Neuropsychol. 2010; 17(3): 190-5.
24. Fishman JA, Cooper RL. Alternative measures of bilingualism.
J Verb Learn Verb Beh. 1969; 8(2): 276-82.
25. Bialystok E, Craik FI, Klein R, Viswanathan M. Bilingualism,
aging, and cognitive control: evidence from the Simon task.
Psychol Aging. 2004; 19(2): 290.
)