Variance In Fluency Research Articles

How Much Retrieval Ability Is in Originality?

ABSTRACTCreative fluency and originality are pivotal indicators of creative potential. Both have been embedded in hierarchical intelligence models as part of the ability to retrieve information from long‐term memory; an ability that is often measured with indicators of retrieval fluency. Creative fluency and retrieval fluency, both expressed by the count of correct responses, are procedurally highly similar. This raises the question how creative fluency and originality are related with retrieval fluency and how both are predicted by other cognitive abilities. In a multivariate study (N = 320), we found that retrieval fluency is very strongly related with creative fluency (r = .87) and substantially related with originality (r = .59). A combined fluency factor still fitted the data well. Cognitive abilities accounted for 63% variance in fluency and 47% variance in originality. After controlling for established cognitive abilities, latent variables for fluency and originality were unrelated with one another. This suggests that the procedural proximity of the ability to fluently generate either information from long‐term memory or ad‐hoc solutions to unusual tasks and the ability to come up with original ideas needs reconsideration. Locating originality below an overarching retrieval factor is contradicted by the present data.

Early rapid naming longitudinally predicts shared variance in reading and arithmetic fluency

A number of cognitive factors have been suggested to underlie development in reading and arithmetic skills. Although the two domains are strongly linked, only a few studies have investigated the processes that are shared between them during the early school years. Rapid automatized naming (RAN) has been identified as a strong predictor of a common fluency factor in reading and arithmetic. In the current study with 232 Norwegian children, we examined how RAN in preschool and Grade 1 relates to the shared and nonshared variance in arithmetic fluency and reading fluency in Grade 3. Furthermore, we examined whether related processing skills (phoneme awareness, working memory, speed of processing, and symbol knowledge) can account for the relationship between RAN and shared fluency—or if they predict variance that is unique to each domain. Our results show that RAN in both preschool and Grade 1 is a strong predictor of shared variance between reading fluency and arithmetic fluency measured several years later, whereas other predictors mainly relate to the nonshared parts of variance in the fluency outcomes. That is, control variables with the theoretical potential to explain some of RAN’s relation to the overlap between reading and arithmetic fluency do not in fact account for this relationship. Our findings provide a starting point for future investigations of the mechanisms of rapid naming.

Metacognition and motivation as predictors for mathematics performance of Belgian elementary school children

In this paper, we investigate the role of metacognitive postdiction skills, intrinsic motivation and prior proficiency in mathematics as Propensity factors within the opportunity–propensity (O–P) model of learning. We tested Belgian children from Grade 1 till 6 in January and June. The study revealed overlapping yet different predictors for mathematical accuracy and fluency, which led us to the practical recommendation for teachers to pay attention to both aspects of mathematics. The metacognitive postdiction skills of children were related to accuracy in mathematics during the whole elementary school period. In addition, we observed that children evaluated their own performance as worse when they were slower in Grades 3 and 4. Intrinsic motivation was related to accuracy but not to fluency in Grade 3. Especially prior mathematical accuracy mattered as a propensity factor. More than half of the variance in accuracy and less than one-fifth of the variance in fluency in January predicted the performances of children for mathematics in June, a finding that highlights the importance of longitudinal designs including students’ prior mathematical accuracy’ as well. Finally, we observed that poor mathematics performers are less intrinsically motivated, and less metacognitively accurate. Moreover, they overestimate their performances more often than well-performing peers in all grades, stressing the importance of paying attention to these aspects in mathematics education.

How should we approach the study of fluency? A corpus analysis

How should we approach the study of fluency? A corpus analysis

In search of methods enhancing fluency in reading: An examination of the relations between time constraints and processes of reading in readers of German

The attainment of fluency in reading is a major difficulty for reading-disabled people. Manipulations applied on the presentation of texts, leading to “on-line” effects on reading (i.e., while texts are manipulated), are one direction of examinations in search of methods affecting reading. The imposing of time constraints, by deleting one letter after the other from texts presented on a computer screen, has been established as such a method. In an attempt to further understand its nature, we tested the relations between time constraints and processes of reading: phonological decoding of small orthogrpahic units and the addressing of orthographic representations from the mental lexicon. We also examined whether the type of orthogrpahic unit deleted (lexical, sublexical, or nonlexical unit) has any additional effect. Participants were German fifth graders with (n=29) or without (n=34) reading disability. Time constraints enhanced fluency in reading in both groups, and to a similar extent, across conditions. Comprehension was unimpaired. These results place the very principle of time constraints, regardless of the orthographic unit manipulated, as a critical factor affecting fluency in reading. However, phonological decoding explained a significant amount of variance in fluency in reading across all conditions in reading-disabled children, whereas the addressing of orthographic representations was the consistent predictor of fluency in reading in regular readers. These results indicate a qualitative difference in the processes explaining the variance in fluency in reading in regular and reading-disabled readers and suggest that time constraints might not have an effect on the relations between these processes and reading performance.

Correlation of Magnocellular Function with Measurements of Reading in Children

Purpose: Children with reading disability frequently exhibit reduced sensitivity to motion, as assessed by coherent motion thresholds (CMT) and critical flicker frequency (CFF). A retrospective analysis was conducted to evaluate whether there was a correlation between reading fluency as measured by the Test of Silent Word Reading Fluency (TOSWRF), reading rate (as measured with the Visagraph II Eye Movement System), and pseudoword decoding (as measured with the pseudoword decoding subtest of the Wechsler Intelligence Achievement Test, WIAT-II), and these two visual motion sensitivity tests. Methods: 68 children between the ages of 7-16 years presented to the principal investigator’s optometric practice for a vision therapy evaluation between June 1st 2010 and March 31st 2011. As part of the standard protocol for vision therapy evaluations, they were assessed using the CMT, CFF, TOSWRF, WIAT-II (pseudoword decoding subtest), and Visagraph II. The patients were divided into reading ability groups based on the published recommendations from the TOSWRF manual. Individuals at the 25% or below level were labeled as poor fluency, individuals in the 26th to 74th% level were labeled average fluency, and those in the 75% or higher level were labeled as good fluency. Results: Pearson correlations were computed between the dependent variables revealing several important relationships: Fluency (TOSWRF) correlated significantly with all of the dependent measures selected for study. Of these measures, the WIAT-II subtest score correlated the most strongly at a moderate level (r = +0.569). Reading rate (Visagraph II) was the next strongest correlate of fluency, with changes in rate accounting for 26.5% of the variance in fluency. The variables of CMT and CFF were combined with rate in two follow-up, logistic regressions to determine whether their inclusion added to the classification accuracy of rate. Both variables improved the specificity of rate, which has a high likelihood of false positives. CMT maintained the sensitivity of rate while boosting specificity, whereas CFF caused a decline in the sensitivity of rate while greatly improving specificity. Reading rate with CFF and with CMT both had an overall accurate prediction of fluency of 84%. Conclusions: Silent word reading fluency correlated with CMT, CFF, reading rate, and WIAT-2. Combining reading rate with a motion sensitivity test (either CMT or CFF) maintained good sensitivity, while greatly improving specificity. Clinicians should consider adding a motion sensitivity test to the Visagraph II reading rate assessment when evaluating school-age children who may be at risk for reading fluency deficits.

The contribution of phonological awareness and naming speed to reading vowelized and unvowelized texts in Arabic

The aim of this study is to assess the contribution of and phonological awareness and naming speed abilities to reading in the Arabic language. For this purpose, 117 third and fifth grade Arabic-speaking children with intact verbal abilities were given measures of phonological awareness and naming speed, as well as reading measures of vowelized and unvowelized texts. The results revealed a modest correlation between phonological awareness and naming speed (NS) measures. Also, as predicted, a significant relationship was found between phonological awareness measures and reading accuracy; and between naming speed measures and fluency. Following, Hierarchal regression analyses revealed that, phonological awareness measures contributed significantly to variance in reading accuracy, and naming speed measures contributed a unique variance in reading fluency. Further analysis revealed that naming speed measures explain more variance in fluency and explained more variance in third grade than in fifth grade while phonological awareness measures explained more variance in fifth grade than in third grade. These results reveal that both abilities are key components in reading acquisition in Arabic, and that their relative contribution to reading not only depends on the orthographic transparency, but to other features as well.

What are the underlying skills of silent reading acquisition? A developmental study from kindergarten to the 2nd grade

Research on reading acquisition and on the processes underlying it usually examined reading orally, while silent reading, which is the more common mode of reading, has been rather neglected. As accumulated data suggests that these two modes of reading only partially overlap, our understanding of the natural mode of reading may still be limited. The present study was set out to explore the underlying skills of reading acquisition examined using silent measures of reading. To this end, children acquiring reading of the phonologically transparent vowelized Hebrew orthography were followed from kindergarten to the 2nd grade. The relations between a range of verbal and visual-spatial skills with measures of silent reading were tested. Phonological awareness, RAN and vocabulary explained a significant amount of variance in fluency in word recognition and in fluency in decoding of pseudo-homophones, while visual speed of processing of numeric symbols explained a notable amount of variance in fluency in word recognition only. Phonological awareness, morphological awareness and phonological working memory were the main skills explaining the variance in reading comprehension. The relations of these skills with the quality of oral reading have been widely established in the reading literature. Furthermore, a similar developmental picture was obtained in the relations between some of these skills and silent reading, as was found with oral reading. Therefore the role of these skills in reading may not be restricted to a certain mode of reading. Also consistent with findings on oral reading, the role of the visual non-orthographic skills in the measures of silent reading was insignificant to very small. Together these results imply that the processes underlying measures of silent reading are not substantially different from the ones underlying measures of oral reading, at least not at the early stages of reading acquisition of a transparent orthography.

Both processing speed and semantic memory organization predict verbal fluency in schizophrenia

We systematically examined the relationship of both lexical retrieval and semantic memory organization to categorical verbal fluency performance in 40 outpatient schizophrenic subjects and 16 healthy controls. Mean choice reaction time (RT) on a lexical decision task was used as a measure of lexical retrieval efficiency. The complexity of semantic memory organization was measured using a Pathfinder semantic network analysis (calculated as the number of inter-node links obtained from a similarity rating task). In the schizophrenia group only, RT and semantic network links were each significantly negatively correlated with fluency and, together, accounted for 23% of the variance in fluency. RT and links were not significantly correlated with one another. Findings were unrelated to age, sex, education, or medication dose. Controlling for IQ reduced but did not abolish the relationship between fluency and network links. We conclude that the restricted verbal output of schizophrenic subjects is related both to impaired lexical retrieval and to variation in semantic memory organization, which partly reflects general intelligence. The statistical independence of the retrieval speed and organizational factors suggests that individuals with schizophrenia differ in the underlying processes that contribute to their reduced verbal fluency.

FLUENCY, FLEXIBILITY, AND ORIGINALITY IN LATER ADULTHOOD

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between divergent thinking abilities, self‐esteem, and personal characteristics of older adults. A total of 39 subjects ranging in age from 61 to 84 years responded to a personal data inventory, a self‐esteem measure, and a taped auditory free‐response exercise in divergent thinking. Scores were obtained for fluency, flexibility, and originality of thought and for self‐esteem. Level of education was the best predictor of divergent thinking abilities. Self‐esteem and age were significantly correlated with fluency and flexibility but not with originality. Level of education accounted for the greatest proportion of variance in divergent thinking scores. In the multiple regressions neither self‐esteem nor age accounted for a significant proportion of the variance in fluency, flexibility, or originality. Self‐reports of subjects supported positiveness in self‐perceptions. Results are discussed in terms of the age‐decrement model of cognitive abilities a...