Design Fluency Task Research Articles

Preliminary Evidence That Design Fluency Is Related to Dual-Task Treadmill Gait Variability in Healthy Adults.

Evidence supporting a link between gait and cognition is accumulating. However, the relation between executive functioning and spatiotemporal gait parameters has received little attention. This is surprising since these gait variables are related to falls. The goal of this preliminary study was to determine whether performance on measures of inhibition, reasoning, and fluency is related to variability in stride length and step width during dual-task treadmill walking in a sample of healthy adults. Nineteen healthy adults averaging 40 years of age were evaluated. Results indicated that processing speed was reduced, t(18) = 6.31, p = 0.0001, step width increased, t(18) = -8.00, p = 0.0001, and stride length decreased, t(18) = 3.06, p = 0.007, while dual tasking, but variability in gait parameters did not significantly change, consistent with a gait/posture-first approach. As hypothesized, better performance on a visual design fluency task which assesses cognitive flexibility was associated with less dual-task stride length variability, rs (17) = -0.43, p = 0.034, and step width variability, r = -0.56, p = 0.006. The results extend previous findings with older adults walking over ground and additionally suggest that cognitive flexibility may be important for gait maintenance while dual tasking.

Young children’s performance on a design fluency task: longitudinal data on total number of designs, clustering and switching, and regression-based norms

ABSTRACT Introduction Design fluency (DF) tasks are commonly used to assess executive functions such as attentional control, cognitive flexibility, self-monitoring and strategy use. Next to the total number of correct designs, the standard outcome of a DF task, clustering and switching can help disentangle the processes underlying DF performance. We present the first longitudinal study of 4–8-year-old children’s developmental DF trajectories. Method At initial enrollment, children (n = 228) were aged between 4.05 and 6.88 years (M = 5.18, SD = 0.59) and attended Dutch primary schools. The DF task was administered at three time points, each time point separated by approximately 1 year. Data were analyzed using mixed regression for total number of correct designs and switching, and mixed logistic regression analysis for clustering. Results The total number of correct designs increased linearly across the three time points. Across all time points, children made very few clusters, and most clusters consisted of only 3 designs. Clustering only increased at the third assessment compared to the two previous assessments. Switching increased up to the second assessment, but not after that. The number of switches was highly correlated with the total number of correct designs at all time points (r = 0.78 to r = 0.85). These developmental trajectories were similar for all children regardless of their baseline age. Normative data are given for the total number of correct designs and switching. Conclusions Children as of age 4 onwards can perform a DF task. For children as young as 4–8 years old, computing clustering, and switching measures is of limited value to study cognitive processes underlying DF performance, next to the total number of correct designs. There were no sex differences on any of the DF outcomes. Level of parental education (LPE) was positively associated with the total number of correct designs and switching.

Hyperzographia in Neglect Exposing a Spatial Dissociation between Painting and Writing—A Case Study

The paper depicts and describes the observation of a remarkable post-stroke production of paintings made by a 54-year-old, right-handed man who suffered an acute right hemispheric stroke. The patient’s post-stroke productivity and the spatial distribution of text and drawings were assessed by means of structural analysis of the paintings, as well as neuropsychological and creativity testing. Compared to the age-matched healthy control group, the patient did not only produce more valid answers in the verbal creativity task, but he also drew more images in the figural creativity task. Most strikingly, the painted images were located on the right side in 70% of the paintings, while the text was aligned to the left side in 42% of the paintings. This dissociation between writing and painting behavior was further mirrored in the patient’s neuropsychological performance in a reading test and in a design fluency task. This observation of an increased post-stroke production of paintings may coin a new term, i.e., “hyperzographia”, in analogy to hypergraphia. Additionally, the puzzling dissociation of the writing and painting behavior highlights an important new clinical aspect concerning a differential influence of hemispatial neglect on writing and painting.

Case report: cognitive performance in an extreme case of anorexia nervosa with a body mass index of 7.7

BackgroundStudies show that adult patients with anorexia nervosa display cognitive impairments. These impairments may be caused by illness-related circumstances such as low weight. However, the question is whether there is a cognitive adaptation to enduring undernutrition in anorexia nervosa. To our knowledge, cognitive performance has not been assessed previously in a patient with anorexia nervosa with a body mass index as low as 7.7 kg/m2.Case presentationWe present the cognitive profile of a 35-year-old woman with severe and enduring anorexia nervosa who was diagnosed at the age of 10 years. She was assessed with a broad neuropsychological test battery three times during a year. Her body mass index was 8.4, 9.3, and 7.7 kg/m2, respectively. Her general memory performance was above the normal range and she performed well on verbal and design fluency tasks. Her working memory and processing speed were within the normal range. However, her results on cognitive flexibility tasks (set-shifting) were below the normal range.ConclusionsThe case study suggests that it is possible to perform normally cognitively despite extreme and chronic malnutrition though set-shifting ability may be affected. This opens for discussion whether patients with anorexia nervosa can maintain neuropsychological performance in spite of extreme underweight and starvation.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov, NCT02502617. Registered 20 July 2015.

Design Fluency in Children with ADHD and Comorbid Disorders.

Background: Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is often associated with frontal executive impairment in children. Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) and anxiety disorders (AD) frequently accompany ADHD, but the impact of these comorbid disorders on cognition remains elusive. The five-point test (FPT), a design fluency task, has been shown to be sensitive to neurological damage, specifically to frontal lobe lesions in patients with brain injuries. The purpose of this study was to compare the performances of neurotypical children with that of children with ADHD, ADHD-ODD, and ADHD-AD on the FPT in order to examine whether these groups could be distinguished from one another based on their cognitive profile. Methods: A total of 111 children aged 8 to 11 years old participated in the study. Six measures from the FPT were used to characterize their performance. Results: Statistically significant differences between groups were observed for five of the six FPT measures. Essentially, children with ADHD-ODD made more repeated designs than the three other groups (control p > 0.001, ADHD p = 0.008, ADHD-AD p = 0.008), while children with ADHD-AD produced fewer total and correct designs than the control and ADHD groups (p = 0.009). Conclusions: This suggests that comorbidities have an additive impact on the cognitive profile of children with ADHD. Design fluency may be a sensitive measure for capturing the subtle cognitive deficits that are likely to be involved in these disorders.

A-26 Performance on Design Fluency and Visuoperception Measures is Related to Single and Dual Task Treadmill Gait Parameters in Healthy Adults

Abstract Objective Research suggests a link between gait and cognition. Executive functions have been related to gait speed, however the relation between design fluency and visuoperception and other spatiotemporal gait characteristics that are related to falling is unclear. The objective of the study was to determine whether performance on design fluency and visuoperception tasks is related to spatiotemporal gait parameters during single and dual task treadmill walking in a sample of healthy adults. Method Nineteen healthy adults averaging 40 years of age completed cognitive measures of design fluency, visual attention, and visuoperception. They underwent gait analysis while walking on an instrumented treadmill in single task and dual task conditions. Results Performance on Spatial Span significantly correlated with single task stride length, r = 0.47, p = 0.043. Performance on Block Design significantly correlated with dual task stride length, r = 0.46, p = 0.049. Performance on Design Fluency significantly correlated with single task stride length variability, r = -0.50, p = 0.030, dual task stride length variability, r = -0.62, p = 0.005, and dual task step width variability, r = -0.56, p = 0.012. Performance on Picture Completion also correlated with dual task step width variability, r = -0.54, p = 0.017. Conclusions Design fluency and visuoperception appear related to spatiotemporal gait parameters in healthy adults. Worse cognitive performance was related to greater variability in dual task stride length and step width, gait characteristics associated with falling in aging and neurological populations.

Deficient Explicit Access to Phonological Representations Explains Phonological Fluency Difficulties in Greek Children With Dyslexia and/or Developmental Language Disorder.

It is well-established that children with dyslexia and/or Developmental Language Disorder (hereafter children with DDLD) perform poorly on phonological tasks compared to typically developing (TD) children. However, there has been some debate as to whether their phonological deficit arises directly from an impairment in phonological representations, or instead from deficient access to (intact) phonological representations. This study tested the Degraded Phonological Representations Hypothesis and the Deficient Phonological Access Hypothesis using a task that is not often used with children with DDLD, namely phonological fluency. Both hypotheses predict that children with DDLD will retrieve fewer items than their TD peers in the phonological fluency task. However, while the Degraded Phonological Representations Hypothesis predicts smaller clusters of phonologically related items in children with DDLD, the Deficient Phonological Access Hypothesis predicts that the two groups will not differ in cluster size. How phonological fluency performance related to children’s language, literacy, and phonological skills was investigated. Further, the specificity of a phonological fluency deficit in children with DDLD was tested using a nonverbal (design) fluency task. Sixty-six children with DDLD aged 7–12 years and 83 TD children aged 6–12 years, all monolingual Greek speakers, were tested on three phonological fluency categories, on nonverbal IQ, language, literacy, and phonological tasks, and on a design fluency task. The DDLD group produced significantly fewer correct responses and fewer switches compared to the TD group, but the two groups showed similar clustering and average cluster size. After controlling for age, children’s language, literacy, and phonological skills significantly predicted the number of correct responses produced. The two groups did not differ significantly on the number of unique designs generated in the design fluency task. Furthermore, children with DDLD showed poorer phonological fluency performance relative to their TD peers even after design fluency performance was controlled, demonstrating the specificity of their phonological fluency deficit. This study adds to the theoretical debate on the locus of the phonological deficit in dyslexia and DLD. The findings support the hypothesis that the phonological deficit in dyslexia and DLD lies in deficient explicit access to intact phonological representations.

Competitive achievement may be predicted by executive functions in junior tennis players: An 18-month follow-up study

ABSTRACTThis study evaluates whether high levels of executive function predict competition results 18 months later in junior tennis players. Forty junior tennis players (20 girls, 20 boys; 9–15 years old) who regularly participate in prefecture tennis tournaments were recruited. All participants underwent executive function evaluations (the Design Fluency Task) in July 2015 and their prefecture junior rankings in August 2015 and February 2017 were recorded. As a result, after controlling for age and gender, the future ranking (February 2017) was significantly predicted by performance in the Design Fluency Task (β = -.30, p = .02; ΔR2 = .08), whereas the prediction for August 2015 rank as the baseline was not significant (β = -.19, p = .17; ΔR2 = .03). After controlling for age, gender, and ranking in the baseline, the change in ranking was significantly predicted by performance in the Design Fluency Task (β = -.14, p = .02; ΔR2 = .02). This suggests that childhood executive function may play a significant role in success later in life. This study highlights how executive function predicts future success in a specific sport; as such, supporting the development of executive function may contribute to higher competition results.

Verbal and Non-verbal Fluency in Adults with Developmental Dyslexia: Phonological Processing or Executive Control Problems?

The executive function of fluency describes the ability to generate items according to specific rules. Production of words beginning with a certain letter (phonemic fluency) is impaired in dyslexia, while generation of words belonging to a certain semantic category (semantic fluency) is typically unimpaired. However, in dyslexia, verbal fluency has generally been studied only in terms of overall words produced. Furthermore, performance of adults with dyslexia on non-verbal design fluency tasks has not been explored but would indicate whether deficits could be explained by executive control, rather than phonological processing, difficulties. Phonemic, semantic and design fluency tasks were presented to adults with dyslexia and without dyslexia, using fine-grained performance measures and controlling for IQ. Hierarchical regressions indicated that dyslexia predicted lower phonemic fluency, but not semantic or design fluency. At the fine-grained level, dyslexia predicted a smaller number of switches between subcategories on phonemic fluency, while dyslexia did not predict the size of phonemically related clusters of items. Overall, the results suggested that phonological processing problems were at the root of dyslexia-related fluency deficits; however, executive control difficulties could not be completely ruled out as an alternative explanation. Developments in research methodology, equating executive demands across fluency tasks, may resolve this issue. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

HIGHER MODIFIED BECK DEPRESSION INVENTORY SCORES ARE ASSOCIATED WITH BODY, EATING, AND EXERCISE COMPARISONS BUT DECREASED EXERCISE AMOUNTS.

Previous research has indicated that exercise can lead to decreased depression symptoms. The relationship of depression with right frontal lobe activity and self-image (body, eating, and exercise) were investigated as reasons why depressive symptoms might lead to decreased exercise. 120 college students (79 women) completed design fluency tasks followed by a set of questionnaires on depression and exercise. High (M = 23.03, SD = 5.92) and low quartiles (M = 3.11, SD = 1.59) were created using the Modified Beck Depression Inventory (mBDI) for primary analyses. The group with higher mBDI scores produced fewer unique designs (suggesting lower right frontal activity) and was more likely to make comparisons based on body shape, eating, and exercise. The group with higher mBDI scores reported significantly less strenuous and moderate exercise. These findings indicate that the relationship between exercise and depression could work in both directions. While exercise can be used as a potential treatment to decrease depression, increased depressive symptoms could be a hindrance to exercise.

Group administration influences design but not written word fluency testing

Quicker assessments of right and left frontal lobe function, such as the examination of performance on design and language fluency tasks, respectively, lend themselves to a group administration setting. However, the influence of social facilitation factors on a dissociation model in these group settings is not well understood. One hundred college students (71 women) completed design and written word fluency tasks while sitting beside a faster or slower working confederate. Questionnaires related to trait worry, emotion regulation, state depression, anxiety and stress were completed following these tasks. Students in the fast condition produced significantly more unique designs, but there was no condition difference on written word fluency. This finding indicated that performance on a design task, which requires relative right frontal activation, may decrease if the subject is paired with a slow working confederate. High trait worriers demonstrated reduced performance on the design task (as indicated by higher design error ratios) but preserved performance on the word task. This supported a single dissociation in that performance on these tasks indicates compromised right hemisphere function and preserved left hemisphere function, respectively, in high trait worriers.

Efficacy of a cognitive intervention program in patients with mild cognitive impairment

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a transitional state between normal aging and dementia. Identifying this condition would allow early interventions that may reduce the rate of progression to Alzheimer's disease (AD). We examined the efficacy of a six-month cognitive intervention program (CIP) in patients with MCI and to assess patients' condition at one-year follow-up. Forty-six MCI participants assessed with neuropsychological, neurological, neuropsychiatry, and functional procedures were included in this study and followed up during a year. The sample was randomized into two subgroups: 24 participants (the "trained group") underwent the CIP during six months while 22 (control group) received no treatment. Sixteen participants dropped out of the study. The intervention focused on teaching cognitive strategies, cognitive training, and use of external aids, in sessions of two hours, twice per week for six months. Cognitive and functional measures were used as primary outcome and all were followed up at one year. The intervention effect (mean change from baseline) was significant (p < 0.05) on the Mini-Mental State Examination (1.74), the Clinical Dementia Rating Scale (0.14), the Boston Naming Test (2.92), block design (-13.66), matrix reasoning (-3.07), and semantic fluency (-3.071) tasks. Four patients (one trained and three controls) progressed to dementia after one year of follow-up. These results suggest that persons with MCI can improve their performance on cognitive and functional measures when provided with early cognitive training and it could persist in a long-term follow-up.

The differing roles of the frontal cortex in fluency tests

Fluency tasks have been widely used to tap the voluntary generation of responses. The anatomical correlates of fluency tasks and their sensitivity and specificity have been hotly debated. However, investigation of the cognitive processes involved in voluntary generation of responses and whether generation is supported by a common, general process (e.g. fluid intelligence) or specific cognitive processes underpinned by particular frontal regions has rarely been addressed. This study investigates a range of verbal and non-verbal fluency tasks in patients with unselected focal frontal (n=47) and posterior (n=20) lesions. Patients and controls (n=35) matched for education, age and sex were administered fluency tasks including word (phonemic/semantic), design, gesture and ideational fluency as well as background cognitive tests. Lesions were analysed by standard anterior/posterior and left/right frontal subdivisions as well as a finer-grained frontal localization method. Thus, patients with right and left lateral lesions were compared to patients with superior medial lesions. The results show that all eight fluency tasks are sensitive to frontal lobe damage although only the phonemic word and design fluency tasks were specific to the frontal region. Superior medial patients were the only group to be impaired on all eight fluency tasks, relative to controls, consistent with an energization deficit. The most marked fluency deficits for lateral patients were along material specific lines (i.e. left-phonemic and right-design). Phonemic word fluency that requires greater selection was most severely impaired following left inferior frontal damage. Overall, our results support the notion that frontal functions comprise a set of specialized cognitive processes, supported by distinct frontal regions.

Impaired Design Fluency Is a Marker of Pathological Cognitive Aging; Results from the Korean Longitudinal Study on Health and Aging

ObjectiveWe investigated neuropsychological markers that can be used to discriminate pathological cognitive aging from normal cognitive aging.MethodsWe administered frontal lobe function tests including the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), digit span test, lexical fluency test, fixed condition design fluency test, and Trail Making Test B (TMT-B) to 92 individuals with pathological cognitive aging (PCA) and 222 individuals with normal cognitive aging (NCA). We examined the main effects of participants' diagnoses (PCA, NCA) and age (65-69 years old, 70-74 years old and 75 years old or over) on their test performance using multivariate analysis of variance.ResultsThe main effects of both the diagnosis (F=2.860, p=0.002) and the age group (F=2.484, p<0.001) were significant. The PCA group showed lower performance on the backward digit span test (F=14.306, p<0.001), fixed condition design fluency test (F=8.347, p=0.004) and also exhibited perseverative errors in the WCST (F=4.19, p=0.042) compared with the NCA group. The main effect of the diagnosis on the backward digit span test and the fixed condition design fluency test remained significant after Bonferroni correction. The main effect of age remained significant in the TMT-B (F=8.737, p<0.001) after Bonferroni correction. Other test scores were not influenced by diagnosis or age.ConclusionThe design fluency task may be a good neuropsychological marker to assess pathological cognitive aging.

An extension of the functional cerebral systems approach to hostility: A capacity model utilizing a dual concurrent task paradigm

Regulatory control of emotions and expressive fluency (verbal or design) have historically been associated with the frontal lobes. Moreover, research has demonstrated the importance of cerebral laterality with a prominent role of the right frontal regions in the regulation of negative affect (anger, hostility) and in the fluent production of designs rather than verbal fluency. In the present research, participants identified with high and with low levels of hostility were evaluated on a design fluency test twice in one experimental session. Before the second administration of the fluency test, each participant underwent physiological (cold pressor) stress. It was hypothesized that diminished right frontal capacity in high-hostile men would be evident through lowered performance on this cognitive stressor. Convergent validity of the capacity model was supported wherein high-hostile men evidenced reduced delta magnitude over the right frontal region after exposure to the physiological stressor but failed to maintain consistent levels of right cerebral activation across conditions. The results suggest an inability for high-hostile men to maintain stable levels of cerebral activation after exposure to physiological and cognitive stress. Moreover, low-hostiles showed enhanced cognitive performance on the design task with lower levels of arousal (heightened delta magnitude). In contrast, reduced arousal yielded increased executive deficits in high-hostiles as evidenced through increased perseverative errors on the design fluency task.

Mild head injury and sympathetic arousal: Investigating relationships with decision-making and neuropsychological performance in university students

Summary: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between neuropsychological performance, physiological arousal and decision-making in university students who have or have not reported a history of mild head injury (MHI).Methods: Forty-four students, 18 (41%) reporting a history of MHI, performed a design fluency task and the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) while electrodermal activity (EDA) was recorded.Results: General cognitive ability and overall choice outcomes did not differ between groups. However, self-reported MHI severity predicted decision-making performance such that the greater the neural indices of trauma, the more disadvantageous the choices made by participants. As expected, both groups exhibited similar base levels of autonomic arousal and physiological responses to reward and punishment outcomes; however, those reporting MHI produced significantly lower levels of EDA during the anticipatory stages of decision-making.Conclusions: Overall, these findings encourage the acceptance of head injury as being on a continuum of brain injury severity, as MHI can emulate neurophysiological and neuropsychological features of more traumatic cases and may be impacting mechanisms which sustain adaptive social decision-making.

Criterion Validity of the Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System (D-KEFS) Fluency Subtests After Traumatic Brain Injury

The performance of 65 patients with complicated mild-severe traumatic brain injury was evaluated on the Verbal and Design Fluency subtests of the Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System (D-KEFS), and compared with that of 65 demographically matched healthy controls. There were statistically significant group differences on Letter Fluency and Category Switching but not on any of the Design Fluency tasks. Combined, these two Verbal Fluency subtests had a classification accuracy of 65.39%, associated with a likelihood ratio of 1.87. The impact of length of coma on Letter Fluency performance but not Category Switching was mediated at least in part by processing speed. The findings suggest modest criterion validity of some of the D-KEFS Verbal Fluency subtests in the assessment of patients with complicated mild-severe traumatic brain injury.

Executive functions in savant artists with autism

Although executive functions have been widely studied in individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), there have been no direct empirical studies of executive abilities in savants with ASD. This study assessed three facets of executive ability (fluency, perseveration and monitoring) in savant artists with ASD, compared to non-talented adults with ASD or mild/moderate learning difficulties (MLD). Executive functions were assessed in and out of the savants’ domain of expertise: on design fluency and card sort tasks, respectively. The design fluency task suggested a sparing of executive abilities in the savant artists, relative to the non-talented ASD group; an effect not observed on the card sort task. The idea that islets of ability involve functions that are protected from more general cognitive deficits in ASD is explored.

Investigating the relationship between mild head injury, physiological arousal, and neuropsychological performance: Is there residual orbitofrontal cortex dysfunction with respect to processing social and emotional information?

Event Abstract Back to Event Investigating the relationship between mild head injury, physiological arousal, and neuropsychological performance: Is there residual orbitofrontal cortex dysfunction with respect to processing social and emotional information? D. Good1* and S. Van Noordt2 1 Brock University, Department of Psychology and Centre for Neurosciences, Canada 2 Brock University, Department of Psychology, Canada The purpose of these studies was to elucidate the relationships between neuropsychological performance and physiological arousal in university students who have or have not reported a history of MHI. In Study 1, 40 participants, 16 (40%) reporting history of MHI, completed tasks of affect recognition, cognitive flexibility, and reasoning. In Study 2, 44 different participants were recruited, 18 (41%) reporting history of MHI, and performed a design fluency task and the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) while electrodermal activity (EDA) was recorded. Study 1 found group differences in affect recognition performance with the MHI group being less successful in discriminating facial expressions, particularly displays of anger. MHI status predicted anger recognition performance over and above the influence of abstract and social reasoning. Study 2 found both groups performed comparably on the design fluency. Overall IGT performance was similar between groups, but self-reported MHI severity negatively predicted IGT performance. EDA magnitude to decision outcomes indicated that individuals with MHI are aroused at levels comparable to their non-MHI cohorts. Nevertheless, the MHI group was significantly less aroused during the anticipatory stages of decision-making. These findings indicate that MHI can negatively impact psychophysiological mechanisms which support adaptive social behaviour. Conference: The 20th Annual Rotman Research Institute Conference, The frontal lobes, Toronto, Canada, 22 Mar - 26 Mar, 2010. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Neuropsychology Citation: Good D and Van Noordt S (2010). Investigating the relationship between mild head injury, physiological arousal, and neuropsychological performance: Is there residual orbitofrontal cortex dysfunction with respect to processing social and emotional information?. Conference Abstract: The 20th Annual Rotman Research Institute Conference, The frontal lobes. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnins.2010.14.00176 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 01 Jul 2010; Published Online: 01 Jul 2010. * Correspondence: D. Good, Brock University, Department of Psychology and Centre for Neurosciences, St. Catherines, Canada, Dawn.good@brocku.ca Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers D. Good S. Van Noordt Google D. Good S. Van Noordt Google Scholar D. Good S. Van Noordt PubMed D. Good S. Van Noordt Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.

Emotion and executive functioning: The effect of normal mood states on fluency tasks

Induced positive affect (PA) can improve verbal fluency performance, and induced negative affect (NA) can increase design fluency performance (Bartolic, Basso, Schefft, Glauser, & Titanic-Schefft, 1999). Building on this, the current study investigated associations between everyday mood states and executive functions. Participants (N = 74, mean age = 51.19 years) completed verbal and design fluency tasks and a self-report affect task. PA was associated with better verbal fluency performance, although NA was not associated with design fluency. Variations in everyday PA may be associated with cognitive performance, whereas greater shifts in NA might be needed to establish associations with executive functioning.