Butler, Ben (2015) Verbal Fluency Assessment: Underlying Cognitive Processes and Australian Normative Data. Honours thesis, University of Southern Queensland. (Unpublished)
Abstract
Verbal fluency assessment is one of the most commonly used forms of neuropsychological testing. This project seeks to create and update Australian normative data for a letter and category fluency test. The project will also seek to build on past research investigations into cognitive phenomena that occur during verbal fluency testing: that cognitive processing in verbal fluency testing changes as a function of time and task. Two tests of verbal fluency were used: the Controlled Oral Word Association Test (COWAT), which is a measure of letter fluency (F, A, and S), and the Semantic Fluency Test, which is a measure of category fluency (Animals, Countries, and Fruits & Vegetables). A factor analysis revealed that different cognitions are present depending on time and task. That is, breaking a 60 second trial into 15-second increments indicated that the first 15 seconds measured verbal fluency, and the remaining 45 seconds appeared to require more effortful retrieval and measured lexical and semantic retrieval abilities. Normative data for the adult Australian population is presented (N=577). Data were stratified by age, gender, and education level. Results from this study will provide Australian clinicians with robust verbal fluency norms for a wide section of the Australian population. It is also hoped that these results can guide future research in investigating more thoroughly how cognitive functions interact during testing.
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| Item Type: | Thesis (Non-Research) (Honours) |
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| Item Status: | Live Archive |
| Additional Information: | Current UniSQ staff and students can request access to this thesis. Please email research.repository@unisq.edu.au with a subject line of SEAR thesis request and provide: Name of the thesis requested and Your name and UniSQ email address |
| Faculty/School / Institute/Centre: | Historic - Faculty of Health, Engineering and Sciences - School of Psychology and Counselling (1 Jan 2015 - 31 Dec 2021) |
| Supervisors: | Graeme Senior |
| Qualification: | Bachelor of Science (Honours) |
| Date Deposited: | 11 Sep 2025 02:50 |
| Last Modified: | 11 Sep 2025 02:50 |
| Fields of Research (2008): | 17 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences > 1799 Other Psychology and Cognitive Sciences > 179999 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences not elsewhere classified |
| Fields of Research (2020): | 52 PSYCHOLOGY > 5299 Other psychology > 529999 Other psychology not elsewhere classified |
| URI: | https://sear.unisq.edu.au/id/eprint/52190 |
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