Date of Award
5-11-2025
Date Published
June 2025
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Department
Psychology
Advisor(s)
Jeffrey Zemla
Second Advisor
Lynn Lohnas
Subject Categories
Cognitive Psychology | Psychology | Social and Behavioral Sciences
Abstract
The semantic fluency task is a timed listing of as many words as possible within a certain category (Bousfield & Sedgewick, 1944). Optimal search requires traversing resource-rich clusters (groups of consecutive responses with shared characteristics) and weighing the benefit of staying in the current cluster, decreasing the rate of return, or switching to a new cluster with more easily accessible resources, but with the cost of search time (Charnov, 1976). According to the marginal value theorem, a switch to a new cluster should occur when the rate of finding words in the current cluster drops below the average rate for the entire task in order to maximize the rate of retrieving animals. Hills, Jones, & Todd (2012) used the marginal value theorem to measure optimal search by observing cluster/switch behavior during the semantic fluency task and found that people switch in accordance to this framework. This study used phonological fluency, which is a timed lexical retrieval task, to measure whether people are exploiting clusters in a similar manner. Three phonemic cues (T, N, and J) were used and additional animal fluency data was collected for comparison. Results of this study show mixed evidence for optimal search, with the more difficult cues (N, J) showing marginal value theorem patterns, but not in easier conditions (T and semantic). The hypothesis that executive functioning can predict how well someone adheres to optimal foraging was not supported. These findings provide mixed support that optimal foraging can be seen during a phonological fluency task, demonstrating optimal search in a different type of memory search.
Access
Open Access
Recommended Citation
Arjune, Kimberly Savika, "FORAGING CONNECTIONS: EXPLORING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN OPTIMAL FORAGING AND PHONOLOGICAL FLUENCY PERFORMANCE" (2025). Theses - ALL. 937.
https://surface.syr.edu/thesis/937
