by Roger Kreuz Ph.D. – Psychology Today –
Recent work suggests a connection between verbal factors and a longer lifespan.
In a study published earlier this year in Psychological Science, a team of researchers reported a link between verbal fluency and mortality risk. The multinational group, led by Paolo Ghisletta of the University of Geneva, made use of data from the Berlin Aging Study.
Between 1990 and 2009, investigators assessed the cognitive abilities of more than 500 participants who were 70 years or older when the study began. Specifically, the researchers measured their “perceptual speed, episodic memory, verbal fluency, and verbal knowledge” (Ghisletta and colleagues, 2025, p. 90). All of the study’s participants are now deceased, and researchers can use the results from the cognitive battery to see if any of these measures are predictive of the participants’ lifespans.
