The role of linguistic knowledge in verbal fluency tests: How individual differences in language skills shape the mental lexicon.

Abstract

"List as many words as you can that start with M." The verbal fluency (VF) task is simple, yet even a typical university student only manages to produce about 15 words within 1 min, and there is substantial variability around this mean. The present study examined how linguistic and domain-general abilities contributed to VF performance in a large sample of healthy adult native speakers of Dutch (N = 571). We assessed the effects of linguistic knowledge, processing speed, short-term/working memory, and fluid intelligence on performance in the VF task. To examine whether linguistic and domain-general abilities contribute differently across VF task types, we included semantic trials (category-based generation: animals, food) and phonemic trials (letter-based generation: words beginning with S or M). We assessed the total number of correct words produced and the time to first response. Mixed-effects modeling showed that linguistic knowledge predicted the total number of correct responses in both semantic and phonemic VF. Short-term/working memory and processing speed were also significant predictors, but with smaller estimated effect sizes. Time to first response showed little effect of linguistic skills. We discuss how linguistic knowledge shapes the structure of the mental lexicon such that it affects both meaning-driven and form-driven access to lexical items. In addition, we provide updated norms for VF performance in Dutch and practical suggestions for using the task. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).