Emotional correlates of fluency test and maze performance

J Clin Psychol. 1994 Jul;50(4):586-90. doi: 10.1002/1097-4679(199407)50:4<586::aid-jclp2270500414>3.0.co;2-z.

Abstract

This study tested the hypothesis that depression, anxiety, and bizarre thought content, as measured by MMPI-2 scales, would show a negative relationship with performance on widely used measures of executive functioning. Subjects were 70 male psychiatric patients who were ostensibly free of any neurologic disease or history of substance abuse. Correlational analyses were performed between age and education-corrected scores on the Controlled Oral Word Association Test (FAS), Design Fluency, and WISC-R Mazes, and scores on MMPI-2 scales D, PT, Anxiety, Fears, Obsessional Thinking, Depression, and Bizarre Mentation. The findings suggest that fluency and maze performance is (1) largely independent of measures of depression (D, DEP) and bizarre mentation (BIZ); (2) mildly associated with a measure of generalized anxiety (ANX); and (3) strongly related to an MMPI-2 measure of fearfulness (FRS).

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Affective Symptoms / classification
  • Affective Symptoms / diagnosis*
  • Affective Symptoms / psychology
  • Aged
  • Anxiety / classification
  • Anxiety / diagnosis
  • Anxiety / psychology
  • Depression / classification
  • Depression / diagnosis
  • Depression / psychology
  • Fear
  • Humans
  • MMPI / statistics & numerical data
  • Male
  • Maze Learning*
  • Mental Disorders / classification
  • Mental Disorders / diagnosis*
  • Mental Disorders / psychology
  • Middle Aged
  • Neurocognitive Disorders / classification
  • Neurocognitive Disorders / diagnosis*
  • Neurocognitive Disorders / psychology
  • Neuropsychological Tests / statistics & numerical data*
  • Psychometrics
  • Reference Values
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Wechsler Scales / statistics & numerical data