Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T20:53:14.943Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Understanding design fluency: Motor and executive contributions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 October 2009

YANA SUCHY*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah
MATTHEW L. KRAYBILL
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah
JENNIFER C. GIDLEY LARSON
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah
*
*Correspondence and reprint requests to: Yana Suchy, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, University of Utah, 380 S. 1530 E., Rm. 502, Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0251. E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract

Design Fluency (DF) is typically assumed to assess planning, cognitive flexibility, and fluency in generation of visual patterns, above and beyond contributions from motor speed (Delis, Kaplan, & Kramer, 2001; Ruff, 1998). The present study examined these assumptions, as little construct validation research has been done in the past. Sixty one community-dwelling elderly participants were administered the DF, Trail Making, and Letter Fluency tests from the Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System (D-KEFS), as well as electronically administered measures of motor planning and motor sequence fluency. Hierarchical regressions were used to parse out unique variance contributions to DF performance. The results showed that generation of novel designs (i.e., the first two trials on the D-KEFS DF) relied primarily on motor planning, the ability to generate novel motor actions, and, to a lesser extent, speed of drawing with a writing implement. In contrast, generation of unique designs while switching (i.e., the third trial on the D-KEFS DF) relied primarily on visual scanning and perhaps visual-attentional resources. These findings highlight the wisdom of interpreting the switching trial of the D-KEFS DF separately. Interestingly, cognitive flexibility did not contribute to performance on any of the three D-KEFS DF trials. (JINS, 2010, 16, 26–37.)

Type
Research Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The International Neuropsychological Society 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Baldo, J.V., Shimamura, A.P., Delis, D.C., Kramer, J., & Kaplan, E. (2001). Verbal and design fluency in patients with frontal lobe lesions. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 7(5), 586596.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Baser, C., & Ruff, R.M. (1987). Construct validity of the Sand Diego Neuropsychological Test Battery. Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, 2, 1332.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Butler, R.W., Rorsman, I., Hill, J.M., & Tuma, R. (1993). The effects of frontal brain impairment on fluency: Simple and complex paradigms. Neuropsychology, 7(4), 519529.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Delis, D., Jacobson, M., Bondi, M.W., Hamilton, J.M., & Salmon, D.P. (2003). The myth of testing construct validity using factor analysis or correlations with normal or mixed clinical populations: Lessons from memory assessment. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 9, 936946.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Delis, D., Kaplan, E., & Kramer, J. (2001). Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System: Examiner’s manual. San Antonio, TX: The Psychological Corporation.Google Scholar
Elfgren, C.I., & Risberg, J. (1998). Lateralized frontal blood flow increases during fluency tasks: Influence of cognitive strategy. Neuropsychologia, 36(6), 505512.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fama, R., Sullivan, E.V., Shear, P.K., Cahn-Weiner, D.A., Marsh, L., Lim, K.O., et al. . (2000). Structural brain correlates of verbal and nonverbal fluency measures in Alzheimer’s disease. Neuropsychology, 14(1), 2941.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jones-Gotman, M., & Milner, B. (1977). Design fluency: The invention of nonsense drawings after focal cortical lesions. Neuropsychologia, 15, 653674.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Keele, S. (1981). Behavioral analysis of movement. In Brooks, V.B. (Ed.), Handbook of physiology, Vol. 2. Motor control (pp. 13911414). Bethesda, MD: American Psychological Society.Google Scholar
Kramer, J.H., Quitania, L., Dean, D., Neuhaus, J., Rosen, H.J., Halabi, C., et al. . (2007). Magnetic resonance imaging correlates of set shifting. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 13(3), 386392.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kraybill, M.L., & Suchy, Y. (2008). Evaluating the role of motor regulation in figural fluency: Partialing variance in the Ruff Figural Fluency Test. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 30(8), 903912.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kraybill, M.L., Suchy, Y., & Franchow, E. (2009, February). Longitudinal prediction of functional independence and cognition: The utility of a brief motor programming task. Poster session presented at the annual meeting of the International Neuropsychological Society, Atlanta, GA.Google Scholar
Psychological Corporation (1997). WAIS-III & WMS-III technical manual. San Antonio, TX: The Psychological Corporation.Google Scholar
Regard, M., Strauss, E., & Knapp, P. (1982). Children’s production on verbal and non-verbal fluency tasks. Perceptual and motor skills, 55(3), 839844.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ruff, R. (1998). RFFT: Ruff Figural Fluency Test: Professional manual. Odessa, FL.: Psychological Assessment Resources.Google Scholar
Ruff, R., Evans, R., & Marshall, L.F. (1986). Impaired verbal and figural fluency after head injury. Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, 1(2), 87101.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stuss, D.T., Alexander, M.P., Benson, D.F., Trimble, M.R., & Cummings, J.L. (1997). Frontal lobe functions. In Contemporary behavioral neurology (pp. 169187). Woburn, MA: Butterworth-Heinemann.Google Scholar
Suchy, Y., Derbidge, C., & Cope, C. (2005). Behavioral Dyscontrol Scale–Electronic Version: First examination of reliability, validity, and incremental utility. Clinical Neuropsychologist, 19(1), 426.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Suchy, Y., & Kraybill, M.L. (2007). The relationship between motor programming and executive abilities: Constructs measured by the Push-Turn-Taptap task from the BDS-EV. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 29(6), 648659.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Suchy, Y., Sands, K., & Chelune, G.J. (2003). Verbal and nonverbal fluency performance before and after seizure surgery. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 25(2), 190200.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tucha, O., Smely, C., & Lange, K.W. (1999). Verbal and figural fluency in patients with mass lesions of the left or right frontal lobes. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 21(2), 229236.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Williams, P.G., Suchy, Y., & Rau, H. (2009). Individual differences in executive functioning: Implications for stress regulation. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 37, 126140.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed