Verbal fluency deficits in female alcoholics.

Verbal fluency deficits in female alcoholics (n = 48) were investigated using Thurstone's Word Fluency Test (TWFT) and a category fluency test. Overall, alcoholics performed less well than did controls (n = 36). Simple effects indicate that although controls performed less well on category fluency than on the TWFT, alcoholics did not differ between the two tests. Simple effects also show that controls' performance was superior to that of alcoholics on the category fluency test, but the groups did not differ on the TWFT. The pattern of results suggests that the process of shifting rapidly between categories is more difficult than perusing a mental lexicon. Correlations between these tasks and other tests of cognitive functioning suggest that the TWFT and the category fluency test may be assessing different types of verbal fluency.