How does the homophone meaning generation test associate with the phonemic and semantic fluency tests? A quantitative and qualitative analysis

Abstract

The current study examines whether the Homophone Meaning Generation Test (HMGT; Warrington, 2000) is correlated with the phonemic and/or the semantic fluency tests and compares its association with the number of switches and clusters and the mean cluster size of these two tasks. One hundred healthy Hebrew speakers (18-35 years of age; mean = 24.9) generated meanings for 24 homophones and provided words beginning in three different letters, as well as words belonging to three semantic categories. Results show that the HMGT score correlated significantly and similarly with the total score of both the phonemic and the semantic fluency tests. There was a significant correlation between the HMGT and the number of phonemic switches and clusters, but not between the HMGT and the mean phonemic cluster size. The HMGT correlated with the number of semantic switches and clusters, as well as with the mean semantic cluster size. The findings suggest that the relationship between these tests is mediated by a shared executive component, attesting to the HMGT's utility in tapping into mechanisms of shifting and mental flexibility.