Does previous presentation of verbal fluency tasks affect verb fluency performance?

BACKGROUND: Performance on the verb fluency (VF) task may be influenced by administration procedures and demographic factors of each population. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to verify whether the previous administration of semantic and phonemic verbal fluency tasks can influence performance on VF; and to analyze the correlation of VF performance with education, age and type of errors in Brazilian healthy elderly. METHODS: Sixty-two participants were subdivided into experimental (semantic and the phonemic fluency tasks were administered before the VF) and control groups (VF only). The total score and the types of errors on the VF task were determined. Additional information was computed for the correlational analysis. RESULTS: VF performance did not differ statistically between experimental and control groups, but correlated positively with education and negatively with intrusions. CONCLUSION: The lack of influence of other verbal fluency tasks on performance of the VF task in elderly individuals allows the use of this order of administration. A strong influence of educational level on VF task performance reinforces the need for further studies in different populations.