Executive functioning moderates the decline of retrieval fluency in time

Prevailing theoretical accounts consider that automatic and controlled processes are uniformly engaged in memory retrieval across performance of the semantic verbal fluency (SVF) task. We tested this proposal against the alternative, namely that a rapid automatic retrieval, exploiting stable associative structure in the early stages of the performance, is followed by a slower, more executively demanding, retrieval in later stages. Eighty-five healthy adults completed low- and high-demand SVF tasks that were assessed for retrieval rate, response typicality, and inter-response similarity across the performance. Additional measures of executive functioning were collected to estimate individual differences in executive control. We found that decrease in fluency in time was associated with lower typicality and weaker semantic similarity of the responses. Critically, the time-dependent retrieval slowing was steeper in individuals with less efficient interference control, particularly in high-demand SVF tasks. Steeper retrieval slowing was also associated with poorer working-memory capacity. Our findings show that the relative contribution of automatic and controlled processes to semantic retrieval changes with associative sparsity over time and across task demands, and provide implications for the use of SVF tasks in clinical assessment.