Category, Letter, and Emotional Verbal Fluency in Spanish–English Bilingual Speakers: A Preliminary Report

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare the performance of bilingual speakers on an emotional verbal fluency task to category and letter verbal fluency tasks. A second purpose was to compare performances on these tasks to language proficiency ratings. Twelve verbal fluency tasks were administered to 21 Spanish-English bilingual speakers. Results were analyzed for differences between fluency types (category, letter, and emotional) and languages (English and Spanish). Participants generated the most items in category fluency tasks and the least items in emotional fluency tasks. The number of items generated for letter and emotional fluency tasks were not significantly different, but both were significantly lower than the number of items generated in category fluency. More items were generated for positive emotions than for negative emotions. Differences between languages for category and letter fluency tasks were significantly correlated with differences in language proficiency ratings, but this finding was not found for emotional fluency tasks. Self-ratings of proficiency and language dominance correlated significantly with performance on category and letter fluency tasks and may be useful predictors of differences between languages on these tasks. Emotional fluency was not significantly correlated with language proficiency ratings, suggesting that performance on emotional fluency may be more significantly affected by emotional processing ability. The emotional verbal fluency task has potential as a component of neuropsychological evaluations to screen easily and quickly for emotional processing deficits, including those associated with traumatic brain injury and depression. Additionally, results support a positivity bias in language and cognition processes.