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Updated Australian category norms for neuropsychological and cognitive testing
Lidan Zheng1,2,3, Brooke Brady1,2,3, Ranmalee Eramudugolla1,2,3
1School of Psychology, The University of New South Wales Sydney, Kensington, NSW, Australia.
Objective:
Category norms are lists of words commonly generated as belonging to given semantic categories and are routinely used in cognitive and neuropsychological assessments. While English-language norms from the US and UK are regularly updated, the only Australian norms were published more than three decades ago in 1988. This study aimed to update Australian category norms to facilitate culturally appropriate cognitive and neuropsychological assessment.
Methods:
Australian adults aged 18 to 85 years (N = 1011, M age = 52.67, SD = 18.89) completed a category production task. Participants were asked to list exemplars for 10 categories (Animal, Fruit, Sport, Clothing, Flower, Birds, Precious Stone, Furniture, Vehicle and Musical Instrument). Frequencies of words within each category were collated. Results were compared to 1988 Australian category norms and current UK category norms.
Results:
The members for each category occurring with a greater than 5% frequency are reported. Analyses showed that norms for Precious Stones were robust across time and region, while norms for Clothing and Birds were vulnerable to temporal and geographical shifts, respectively.
Conclusions:
These findings provide updated, context-relevant norms to inform both clinical and research-related neuropsychological and cognitive testing in Australia. They also demonstrate temporal, cultural and geographical variations in category norms.
