Word retrieval to letter and semantic cues: a double dissociation in normal subjects using interference tasks

Recent evidence suggests that letter and semantic category verbal fluency tasks may use different component processes of a distributed word retrieval system. We hypothesized that the retrieval of words that begin with the same letter places greater demands on frontal lobe mediated strategic search processes than on temporal lobe mediated semantic knowledge. Conversely, generation of words from the same semantic category places greater demands on semantic knowledge than on strategic search. This hypothesis was tested by requiring subjects to generate lists of words to letter and semantic cues alone and while performing an interference task. A motor sequencing task (developed by Moscovitch, Neuropsychology of Memory, pp. 5-22, 1992) was used to activate frontal regions and an object decision task was used to activate posterior temporal cortex. In support of the hypothesis, letter fluency was reduced to a greater extent by concurrent performance of the motor sequencing task than by the object decision task. The opposite interference pattern was found for semantic category fluency.