Semantic verbal fluency (SVF) tasks require individuals to name items from a specified category within a fixed time. An impaired SVF performance is well documented in patients with amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment (aMCI). The two leading theoretical views suggest either loss of semantic knowledge or impaired executive control to be responsible.

We assessed SVF 3 times on 2 consecutive days in 29 healthy controls (HC) and 29 patients with aMCI with the aim to answer the question which of the two views holds true.

When doing the task for the first time, patients with aMCI produced fewer and more common words with a shorter mean response latency. When tested repeatedly, only healthy volunteers increased performance. Likewise, only the performance of HC indicated two distinct retrieval processes: a prompt retrieval of readily available items at the beginning of the task and an active search through semantic space towards the end. With repeated assessment, the pool of readily available items became larger in HC, but not patients with aMCI.

The production of fewer and more common words in aMCI points to a smaller search set and supports the loss of semantic knowledge view. The failure to improve performance as well as the lack of distinct retrieval processes point to an additional impairment in executive control. Our data did not clearly favour one theoretical view over the other, but rather indicates that the impairment of patients with aMCI in SVF is due to a combination of both.

语义语言流利度 (SVF) 任务要求个人在固定时间内从指定类别中命名项目。在患有遗忘性轻度认知障碍 (aMCI) 的患者中，SVF 性能受损已得到充分证明。两种主要的理论观点表明，要么是语义知识的丧失，要么是执行控制受损。

我们在 29 名健康对照 (HC) 和 29 名 aMCI 患者中连续 2 天对 SVF 进行了 3 次评估，旨在回答这两种观点中哪一种观点正确的问题。

在第一次执行任务时，aMCI 患者产生的常用词越来越少，平均反应潜伏期更短。当反复测试时，只有健康的志愿者才能提高表现。同样，只有 HC 的性能表明了两个不同的检索过程：在任务开始时迅速检索现成的项目，以及在结束时通过语义空间进行主动搜索。通过反复评估，HC 患者的现成项目库变得更大，但 aMCI 患者则没有。

在 aMCI 中产生越来越少的常用词指向较小的搜索集，并支持语义知识视图的丢失。未能提高绩效以及缺乏独特的检索过程表明执行控制存在额外的损害。我们的数据并没有明显支持一种理论观点，而是表明 SVF 中 aMCI 患者的损害是由于两者的结合。