Cognitive strategy in verbal fluency: sex differences, menstrual cycle, and menopause effects.

ABSTRACT: Cognitive sex differences are shaped by hormone effects on brain development, organisation, structure, function, and ageing. In human speech and language, sex differences and hormone effects are typically studied in the form of performance-based differences (via measures of central tendency) with little attention given to underlying cognitive strategy. This study presents data from 126 healthy adults, aged 20-79 years, from three studies of letter based verbal fluency. Comparisons were conducted based on sex, menstrual cycle phase, and menopause stage to examine total words produced, plus switching and clustering strategy use. The investigation probed differences in performance, underlying cognitive strategies, and correlations between performance and strategy. For performance, there were

SUBMITTER: Cowell PE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12339591 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature