The relationship between working memory and verbal fluency following traumatic brain injury

UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
Ann Louise Cralidis (Creator)
Institution
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
Advisor
Kristine Lundgren

Abstract: The present study sought to determine whether participants with moderate to severe traumatic brain injury (MOD/S TBI) would quantitatively and qualitatively differ from participants with no brain damage (NBD) in phonemic and semantic verbal fluency, and whether the potential differences may be attributed to working memory (WM) and information processing speed. Independent t-test procedures indicated that the MOD/S TBI group was disproportionately impaired on all test measures when compared to an NBD group. However, when Bonferroni adjustments for multiple comparisons were applied, only two results remained statistically significant. First, the MOD/S TBI group differed significantly from the NBD group on the total number of correct words generated for the letter S on the phonemic verbal fluency task, and for the semantic categories of animals and boys' names. Second, the MOD/S TBI group produced a significantly greater number of word recall errors on a measure of WM when compared to participants with NBD. Moreover, a mixed-analysis of variance (ANOVA) procedures suggested that the MOD/S TBI group was impaired in their performance on tasks of information processing speed and WM, when compared to the NBD group, and these differences were correlated with decrements in performance on tasks of verbal fluency, as indicated by the total number of words produced on these tasks.

Additional Information

Publication
Dissertation
Language: English
Date: 2012
Keywords
Information Processing Speed, Traumatic Brain Injury, Verbal Fluency, Working Memory
Subjects
Brain $x Wounds and injuries $x Research
Brain damage $x Complications $x Research
Short-term memory $x Research
Verbal ability $x Research

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