The Emotional Verbal Fluency Task: A Close Examination of Verbal Productivity and Lexical-Semantic Properties

The Effect of Language Dominance on Classic Semantic, Action, Emotional, and Phonemic Fluency in Unbalanced Bilinguals

OBJECTIVE

Verbal fluency evaluation in bilingual speakers should include dual-language assessment to obtain a comprehensive profile of word retrieval abilities. This study is the first to compare classic semantic, action, emotional, and phonemic fluency in terms of the magnitude of their performance gaps between the dominant and nondominant language in unbalanced bilingual speakers. We also examined the quantitative relationship between language dominance and verbal fluency performance.

METHOD

Twenty-six bilingual adults completed a comprehensive set of classic semantic ("animals," "vegetables"), action ("do"), emotional ("happy," "sad," "afraid"), and phonemic ("F," "A," "S") fluency tasks in their dominant language (English) and nondominant language (Spanish) in two sessions on separate days. Participants also completed subjective and objective measures of language proficiency.

RESULTS

All tasks yielded fewer correct responses in the nondominant language. The between-languages performance gap was the largest for "animals" and the smallest for emotional fluency. "Happy" yielded the most balanced performance among all semantic tasks and a positivity bias that was unaffected by language dominance. Finally, language dominance scores computed by a newly developed formula indicated relationships between self-rated proficiency and fluency performance.

CONCLUSIONS

This study provides preliminary, normative data of classic semantic, action, emotional, and phonemic fluency that could be used to gauge unbalanced bilingual speakers' performance. Significant impacts of language dominance on "animals" demand caution in using this widely used classic semantic category in evaluating bilingual speakers' performance. The data also underscore the robustness of positivity biases in emotional fluency and the validity of using subjective measures to supplement neuropsychological assessment of fluency performance.

Dual-Language Testing of Emotional Verbal Fluency: A Closer Look at "Joy," "Sadness," "Fear," "Anger," and "Disgust"

OBJECTIVE

Assessing neuropsychological functions of dual-language speakers with semantic verbal fluency should consider the impact of language proficiency. Much evidence for the proficiency effect is found in tasks targeting neutral words. The proficiency effect on emotional verbal fluency (Emo-VF) that targets emotional word retrieval, however, is far from conclusive. This study aimed to clarify the proficiency effect on Emo-VF, specifically the extent to which language proficiency impacted positive and negative word retrieval comparably. In addition, the study examined the extent to which dual-languages speakers produced duplicated items and unique, non-duplicated items in each of two languages tested.

METHOD

Thirty-two adult participants completed Emo-VF tasks that targeted a comprehensive set of basic emotions ("joy," "sadness," "fear," "anger," "disgust") in English and Spanish in two sessions separated by at least 72 h. All participants exhibited greater proficiency in English than in Spanish according to subjective and objective measures of language proficiency.

RESULTS

Verbal productivity was comparably lowered for all emotions in the less proficient language. Differences among categories were consistent between languages, with "joy" eliciting more words than other emotions, and "fear" yielding the highest productivity among negative emotions. Finally, dual-language speakers produced a significant number of unique items in different languages, especially for "fear."

CONCLUSION

Language proficiency exerts a general effect on positive and negative word retrieval. The study extends previous work by revealing differences between "fear" and other negative categories in addition to replicating positivity biases in unbalanced dual-language speakers. Dual-language testing is valuable in capturing the richness of emotional word repertoire associated with different languages.

Emotional and Non-Emotional Verbal Fluency in Native and Non-Native Speakers

OBJECTIVE

Native speakers frequently outperform non-native speakers on classic semantic verbal fluency tasks that target concrete non-emotional word retrieval. Much less is known about performance differences in retrieval of emotional words, which are abstract and crucial to social-emotional competence. This study compared native and non-native speakers' verbal productivity on emotional and non-emotional verbal fluency tasks.

METHOD

Forty-seven native and 37 non-native speakers of English participated in the study. Participants completed seven semantic verbal fluency tasks in English including classic semantic (e.g., "animals"), action (e.g., "things people do"), and emotional variants (e.g., "things that make people happy"). Subjective and objective measures of English proficiency, information about language usage, and cognitive measures (working memory) were obtained for each participant.

RESULTS

Verbal productivity for classic semantic, action, and emotional verbal fluency was lower for non-native speakers. Smaller language-specific vocabulary in non-native speakers did not moderate positivity biases in emotional verbal fluency. Subjective and objective language proficiency measures were less predictive of performance on the emotional than the non-emotional verbal fluency tasks.

CONCLUSION

Non-native speakers perform more poorly than native speakers on semantic verbal fluency in English for both emotional and non-emotional variants. Positivity biases are not moderated by language proficiency and are reliable features of emotional verbal fluency. Proficiency measures may be less effective in predicting generation of emotional than neutral words.

Performance Differences Between Native and Non-Native Speakers on a New Happy-Sad Executive Function Measure

OBJECTIVE

The happy-sad task adapts the classic day-night task by incorporating two early acquired emotional concepts ("happy" and "sad") and demonstrates elevated inhibitory demands for native speakers. The task holds promise as a new executive function measure for assessing inhibitory control across the lifespan, but no studies have examined the influence of language of test administration on performance.

METHOD

Seventy adult native English speakers and 50 non-native speakers completed the computerized day-night and the new happy-sad tasks administered in English. In two conditions, participants were categorized pictorial stimuli either in a congruent manner ("happy" for a happy face) or in a more challenging, incongruent manner ("sad" for a happy face). Lexical decision performance was obtained to estimate levels of English language proficiency.

RESULTS

Native speakers and non-native speakers performed comparably except for the critical incongruent condition of the happy-sad task, where native speakers responded more slowly. A greater congruency effect for the happy-sad task was found for native than for non-native speakers. Lexical decision performance was associated with performance on the challenging incongruent conditions.

CONCLUSION

This study reinforced the usefulness of the happy-sad task as a new measure in evaluating inhibitory control in adult native-speakers. However, the language of test administration needs to be considered in assessment because it may lead to performance differences between native and non-native speakers.