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Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/2445/162494
Schizotypal personality and semantic functioning: Revisiting category fluency effects in a subclinical sample
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Semantic disturbances have been proposed as a possible cause of formal thought disorder in schizophrenia. Fluency tasks, in which volunteers are asked to produce as many exemplars as they can for a given category during one minute, are usually applied to the assessment of semantic processing. However, studies associating fluency and proneness to psychosis have provided conflicting results so it is not clear whether these disturbances can be identified at subclinical stages. We conducted two experiments. In the first one, 71 volunteers completed written category fluency tasks with four semantic categories (animals, fruits, clothing and vehicles). In the second experiment, 77 new participants completed oral category and phonological fluency tasks (words starting with f, t, p and c). In both experiments, we assessed schizotypal personality and vocabulary size. Schizotypal traits were not reliably associated with either productivity or originality of the responses in any experiment. In contrast, vocabulary size significantly predicted the participants' scores in all the tasks. Along with results of other recent studies, our data cast doubt on the reliability of previous observations pointing out an association between schizotypy and lexical-semantic disturbances, at least in relation to productivity and originality in fluency tests.
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RODRÍGUEZ-FERREIRO, Javier and AGUILERA, María del Carmen. Schizotypal personality and semantic functioning: Revisiting category fluency effects in a subclinical sample. Psychiatry Research. 2019. Vol. 271, num. 365-369. ISSN 0165-1781. [consulted: 6 of June of 2026]. Available at: https://hdl.handle.net/2445/162494