[Generation of isolated words in normal subjects]

This study aims at analyzing the performance according to age, sex, and educational level in 112 French normal subjects on word generation tests, i.e., time-limited production of a noun or a verb semantically linked to a target "noun" or "verb". The nature of hits (exclusively production of nouns) has moreover been analyzed according to different features of the targets: noun vs verb, names of natural objects vs handmade objects, transitive vs intransitive verbs. Results show 1) a significant effect of age and educational level on performance, 2) a degree of difficulty, the verb/verb production test being significantly more difficult than the three other tests, 3) a convergency effect according to the natural vs handmade dichotomy, as subjects tend to produce, without specific instruction, an item belonging to the same category as that of the stimulus, and 4) object nouns tend to be produced in response to transitive verbs whereas subject nouns are not predominantly produced in response to intransitive verbs.