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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jan 15, 2026

Decomposing the Variance in Reading Comprehension to Reveal the Unique and Common Effects of Language and Decoding

Decomposing the Variance in Reading Comprehension to Reveal the Unique and Common Effects of Language and Decoding

Published on: October 11, 2018

Literacy boosts semantic fluency even in ecologically valid categories.

Tan Arda Gedik¹, Vania De la Garza²

¹FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany; Bilkent University, Turkey.

Acta Psychologica

|October 15, 2025

Summary

Literacy significantly enhances semantic fluency in adults. Reading fluency, a proxy for literacy, was the key predictor of word generation, even for familiar categories like fruits and animals.

Keywords:

Literacy Reading Fluency Semantic Fluency Turkish

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Lexical Decision Task for Studying Written Word Recognition in Adults with and without Dementia or Mild Cognitive Impairment

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Published on: June 25, 2019

Area of Science:

Cognitive Psychology
Neuroscience
Linguistics

Background:

Semantic fluency tasks measure word generation within categories under time pressure.
Performance is influenced by literacy, education, and life experiences.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the association between reading fluency (literacy proxy) and education with semantic fluency performance in Turkish adults.
To examine performance across semantic categories with varying ecological validity (animals, fruits, household objects).

Main Methods:

Forty-four adult Turkish speakers (24 illiterate, 20 literate) participated.
Participants completed a semantic fluency task across three categories.
Regression analyses were used to identify predictors of performance.

Main Results:

Literate participants generated significantly more words than illiterate participants across all categories (p < 0.001).
Reading fluency was the sole significant predictor of semantic fluency performance (R² = 0.58).
Literacy impacted performance even in categories with high ecological validity.

Conclusions:

Literacy appears to expand vocabulary and world knowledge, improving word retrieval efficiency.
Reading fluency plays a crucial role in semantic fluency, even for familiar concepts.
These findings underscore the cognitive benefits of literacy beyond basic communication.