Verbal fluency is about rapidly accessing your mental vocabulary while talking or writing. Quick wit, snappy exchanges and persuasive communications rely upon this ability to quickly connect words.
USED FOR
• Language
• Tip-of-the-tongue word finding
• Thinking outside of the box
That annoying tip-of-the-tongue state is due to weakened connections between linguistic representations of the brain. Priming these word systems has shown to help with language retrieval.
References:
Burke, D. M., & Shafto, M. A. (2004). Aging and Language Production. Current Directions in Psychological Science: A Journal of the American Psychological Society, 13(1), 21-24.
Karpicke, J. D., & Roediger, H. L. (2008). The critical importance of retrieval for learning. Science (New York, N.Y.), 319(5865), 966-8.
Shafto, M. A., Burke, D. M., Stamatakis, E. A., Tam, P. P., & Tyler, L. K. (2007). On the tip-of-the-tongue: neural correlates of increased word-finding failures in normal aging. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 19(12), 2060-70.
