Action (verb) fluency is a newly developed verbal fluency task that
requires the examinee to rapidly generate as many verbs (i.e.,
“things that people do”) as possible within 1 min. Existing
literature indicates that action fluency may be more sensitive to
frontal–basal ganglia loop pathophysiology than traditional noun
fluency tasks (e.g., animal fluency), which is consistent with the
hypothesized neural dissociation between noun and verb retrieval. In the
current study, a series of analyses were undertaken to examine the
psychometric properties of action fluency in a sample of 174 younger
healthy participants. The first set of analyses describes the development
of demographically adjusted normative data for action fluency. Next, a
group of hypothesis-driven correlational analyses reveals significant
associations between action fluency and putative tests of executive
functions, verbal working memory, verbal fluency, and information
processing speed, but not between action fluency and tests of learning or
constructional praxis. The final set of analyses demonstrates the
test–retest stability of the action fluency test and provides
standards for determining statistically reliable changes in performance.
In sum, this study enhances the potential clinical applicability of action
fluency by providing demographically adjusted normative data and
demonstrating evidence for its reliability and construct validity.
(JINS, 2005, 11, 408–415.)