Switching and its Impact on Perseveration in a Verbal Fluency Task: a Study in Persons With Alzheimer’s Clinical Syndrome

Switching between subcategories and subsequent switchback play an important role in triggering perseverations in semantic verbal fluency tasks in the cognitively unimpaired as well as in aMCI and ACS-Dementia. Self-generated interference caused by repeated switching may overwhelm the working memory capacity enough to reactivate a previously suppressed response when revisiting an earlier subcategory. Our findings may facilitate a deeper understanding of the cognitive mechanisms underlying perseveration in semantic fluency tests.