Semantic and Affective Verbal Fluency: Sex Differences

Abstract

Sex may have an important influence on verbal fluency. The aim of this study is to examine possible sex differences in different types of verbal fluency. Four tasks of verbal fluency were used in this study: two tasks of semantic verbal fluency ( Animals, Fruits) and two tasks of affective verbal fluency ( Pleasant, Unpleasant). The results were analysed for 200 adults aged 18 to 70 years. The number of correctly enumerated words, the number of phonemic clusters, the number of semantic clusters, and the number of phonemic and semantic switches were recorded. The results confirmed data about sex differences in verbal fluency performance. Statistically significant differences in verbal fluency between men and women were found only in affective tasks. Sex is not a strong predictor of semantic verbal fluency performance, but a statistically significant predictor for negative affective verbal fluency.