Abstract
Mounting evidence suggests that measures of phonemic fluency and semantic fluency are differentially associated with other cognitive and health phenotypes, but few studies have examined their shared and unique variance, especially using genetically-informative designs. In this study, 1464 middle-aged twins completed six fluency subtests at up to two time-points (mean age 56 and 62 years). Confirmatory factor analyses supported a two-factor solution: a General Fluency latent factor explained variation in all six subtests and a Semantic-Specific factor accounted for additional variance in semantic subtests. Both factors were explained primarily by genetic influences at both waves (a2 = 0.57–0.76). There was considerable stability of individual differences over 6 years (r = .90 for General Fluency, r = .81 for Semantic-Specific), especially for genetic influences (rg = .94 and 1.0, respectively). These results suggest that semantic fluency can be viewed as a combination of general and semantic-specific variance, but phonemic fluency is captured entirely by the general factor.
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Notes
The term “bifactor” does not actually refer to the number of factors in the model. Rather, it refers to the approach of fitting a common factor explaining variance in all the candidate indicators, and fitting specific factors as needed to capture additional variation (e.g., Semantic-Specific) not already captured by the common factor, even though in some cases there may be more than one additional factor.
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Acknowledgements
This research was supported by Grants AG050595, AG018386, AG018384, AG022381, and AG047903 from the National Institutes of Health. The content of this manuscript is the responsibility of the authors and does not represent official views of NIA/NIH, or the Veterans’ Administration. Numerous organizations provided invaluable assistance in the conduct of the VET Registry, including: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Defense; National Personnel Records Center, National Archives and Records Administration; Internal Revenue Service; National Opinion Research Center; National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences; the Institute for Survey Research, Temple University. The authors gratefully acknowledge the continued cooperation of the twins and the efforts of many staff members.
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This research was supported by Grants AG050595, AG018386, AG018384, AG022381, and AG047903 from the National Institutes of Health.
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Daniel E. Gustavson, Matthew S. Panizzon, Jeremy A. Elman, Carol E. Franz, Asad Beck, Chandra A. Reynolds, Kristen C. Jacobson, Hong Xian, Rosemary Toomey, Michael J. Lyons, and William S. Kremen declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
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Gustavson, D.E., Panizzon, M.S., Elman, J.A. et al. Genetic and Environmental Influences on Verbal Fluency in Middle Age: A Longitudinal Twin Study. Behav Genet 48, 361–373 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-018-9910-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-018-9910-6