Support for a novel, simple method for calculating word frequency of output on language production tasks (original) (raw)
Related papers
PsyArXiv, 2021
Previous research on word frequency during speech production in schizophrenia is scant and inconclusive. Furthermore, there may exist methodological difficulties in utilizing corpus-based word frequencies, while adequate corpora are not available for all languages. We calculated (1) corpus-based and (2) within-sample word frequencies of output on verbal fluency in 36 patients with schizophrenia and tested their associations with positive and negative symptoms. Withinsample word frequency was calculated as the number of subjects in the sample who produced the word. Within-sample but not corpus-based word frequencies displayed normal, non-skewed, and non-kurtic data distributions. Within-sample but not corpus-based word frequencies were significantly correlated with the severity of delusions and bizarre behavior. We propose that the within-sample word frequency might be a valuable alternative to corpus-based word frequencies in clinical research.
Empirical evaluation of language disorder in schizophrenia
Journal of psychiatry & neuroscience : JPN, 2007
Studies of the content of speech and of verbal hallucinations in schizophrenia point to dysfunction at multiple levels of language. In this study, we empirically evaluated language processes. We examined the performance of 22 schizophrenia patients and 11 healthy control subjects with procedures designed to explore the sublexical, lexical, semantic, syntactic and discourse levels of language processing. Schizophrenia patients exhibit impairment in the recognition of incorrect, but not correct, linguistic stimuli at all but the sublexical level of language processing. The patients were not impaired in the recognition of nonlinguistic stimuli. This language-specific differential impairment could explain speech abnormalities in schizophrenia. The nonrecognition of incorrect linguistic information would prevent patients from correcting the abnormal speech they may occasionally produce. A model of decreased power of linguistic computations (reduced number of operations) adequately accoun...
2021 Congress of the Schizophrenia International Research Society (SIRS), 2021
Despite verbal fluency (VF) being a common task in psychiatric research, there is very little consensus on the nature of VF deficits in psychiatric populations and their implications for our knowledge about cognitive and specifically linguistic functioning in these populations. Previous studies have found that negative symptoms, including alogia, are associated with poorer overall VF production in patients with schizophrenia (SCH), while studies investigating positive symptoms, including formal thought disorder, have yielded mixed results. Because most studies didn’t analyze additional VF measures such as clustering and lexical characteristics, it remains unclear whether the association between negative and positive symptoms and VF performance in patients with schizophrenia reflects abnormalities in linguistic and/or semantic processing or other aspects of cognition. Furthermore, it is uncertain whether these associations are specific to patients with schizophrenia, while the associations with manic and depressive symptoms are understudied.
Word production in schizophrenia and its relationship to positive symptoms
Psychiatry research, 1999
We explored relationships between positive symptoms of schizophrenia and neurocognitive functions (language and memory). The semantic and phonemic associations among words produced in a verbal fluency task by 26 participants diagnosed with DSM-III-R schizophrenia were examined. Formal thought disorder was associated with producing fewer contextually related words and with producing more unrelated words. In contrast, hallucinations were associated with producing more related words. Our results suggest associations between formal thought disorder and impaired memory, and between hallucinations and increased lexical activation/excessive synaptic pruning.
Linguistic Measures of Symptomatology in Schizophrenia
2021
This research investigates how to measure affected speech of patients with schizophrenia by analyzing how they orally describe a picture compared to controls. Currently, there is no single clear set of criteria for recognizing disorganized speech. By working with a standard set of parameters (descriptions of a single picture) we can find patterns of speech that differ between the two groups. 68 patients and 78 controls were asked to describe a line drawing of a beach scene as completely as possible for a period of 2 minutes. These picture descriptions were analyzed on the basis of i) ɴᴀʀʀᴀᴛɪᴠᴇ sᴛʀᴜᴄᴛᴜʀᴇ, which examines how patients and controls transition between topics; ii) ʀᴇʟᴀᴛɪᴏɴsʜɪᴘs, which investigates how subjects construct connections between objects in the picture; and iii) ᴄᴏᴍᴘʟᴇᴛᴇɴᴇss, which investigates whether patients and controls differ in how detailed their respective descriptions are. The major findings of these analyses showed that patients use fewer complex transi...
A Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis of Schizophrenia Language
2022
Schizophrenia is one of the most disabling mental health conditions to live with. Approximately one percent of the population has schizophrenia which makes it fairly common, and it affects many people and their families. Patients with schizophrenia suffer different symptoms: formal thought disorder (FTD), delusions, and emotional flatness. In this paper, we quantitatively and qualitatively analyze the language of patients with schizophrenia measuring various linguistic features in two modalities: speech and written text. We examine the following features: coherence and cohesion of thoughts, emotions, specificity, level of committed belief (LCB), and personality traits. Our results show that patients with schizophrenia score high in fear and neuroticism compared to healthy controls. In addition, they are more committed to their beliefs, and their writing lacks details. They score lower in most of the linguistic features of cohesion with significant p-values.