Effects of age, gender, and education on task performance and prefrontal cortex processing during emotional and non-emotional verbal fluency tests

•Demographic effects on neurocognitive processing during two SFTs were examined.•Age and gender affected non-emotional and emotional SFT performances differently.•The emotional SFT is influenced by overlapping yet distinct demographic variables.•Only age significantly affected PFC activation during SFT performances.•There is a similar age-related reorganization of PFC function across SFT versions. The emotional semantic fluency test (SFT) is an emerging verbal fluency test that requires controlled access to emotional lexical information. Currently, how demographic variables influence neurocognitive processing during this test remains elusive. The present study compared the effects of age, gender, and education on task performance and prefrontal cortex (PFC) processing during the non-emotional and emotional SFTs. One-hundred and thirty-three Cantonese-speaking adults aged 18–79 performed the non-emotional and emotional SFTs while their PFC activation was measured using functional near-infrared spectroscopy. Results showed that more education predicted better non-emotional SFT performance, whereas younger age, being female, and more education predicted better emotional SFT performance. Only age significantly affected PFC activation during the SFTs, and the effect was comparable between the two SFTs. Thus, compared with its non-emotional analog, the emotional SFT is influenced by overlapping yet distinct demographic variables. There is a similar age-related reorganization of PFC function across SFT performances.