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Cited by 363Schizophrenia research and treatmentMental Health via WritingMental Health and Psychiatry

Quantifying incoherence in speech: An automated methodology and novel application to schizophrenia

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Elvevåg, Brita, Foltz, Peter W., Weinberger, Daniel R., Goldberg, Terry E.·2007·Schizophrenia Research
DOI 10.1016/j.schres.2007.03.001PMC PMC1995127
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Abstract

Incoherent discourse, with a disjointed flow of ideas, is a cardinal symptom in several psychiatric and neurological conditions. However, measuring incoherence has often been complex and subjective. We sought to validate an objective, intrinsically reliable, computational approach to quantifying speech incoherence. Patients with schizophrenia and healthy control volunteers were administered a variety of language tasks. The speech generated was transcribed and the coherence computed using Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA). The discourse was also analyzed with a standard clinical measure of thought disorder. In word association and generation tasks LSA derived coherence scores were sensitive to differences between patients and controls, and correlated with clinical measures of thought disorder. In speech samples LSA could be used to localize where in sentence production incoherence occurs, predict levels of incoherence as well as whether discourse "belonged" to a patient or control. In conclusion, LSA can be used to assay disordered language production so as to both complement human clinical ratings as well as experimentally parse this incoherence in a theory-driven manner.

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  • Mota et al. identified structural speech-graph features that serve as objective language measures containing clinically relevant information such as flight of thoughts and poverty of speech.

    “The researchers were able to identify structural features of the generated graphs (such as loop density, distance between words of interest, etc.) that serve as objective language measures containing clinically relevant information (e.g. flight of thoughts, poverty of speech, etc.).”

    From A Review of Automated Speech and Language Features for Assessment of Cognitive and Thought Disorders (2020) · cites this paper as [22]

  • Structural features of speech graphs, such as loop density and distance between words of interest, are clinically relevant objective language measures that provide insight into cognitive function.

    “The researchers in this work suggest that structural graph features, i.e. loop density, distance (number of nodes) between words of interest, etc.) serve as clinically relevant objective language measures that give insight into cognitive function.”

    From A Review of Automated Speech and Language Features for Assessment of Cognitive and Thought Disorders (2020) · cites this paper as [22]

  • Mota et al. visualized and quantified logorrhea in mania as denser speech-graph networks and alogia in schizophrenia as greater nodes per word and average total degree per node.

    “Using these features, the researchers were able to visualize and quantify concepts such as the logorrhea (excessive wordiness and incoherence) associated with mania, evidenced by denser networks. Similarly, the alogia (poverty of speech) typical of schizophrenia was also visible in the generated speech-graph networks, as evidenced by a greater number of nodes per word and average total degree per”

    From A Review of Automated Speech and Language Features for Assessment of Cognitive and Thought Disorders (2020) · cites this paper as [22]

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Research works printed but not linked: 3

  1. Jastak S, Wilkinson GS. The Wide Range Achievement Test-Revised administration manual. Rev. ed. Wilmington, Del: Jastak; 1984. [Google Scholar]
  2. Wechsler D. Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised. San Antonio, Texas: Psychological Corporation; 1981. [Google Scholar]
  3. Zwaan RA, Singer M. Text comprehension. In: Graesser AC, Gernsbacher MA, Goldman SR, editors. Handbook of discourse processes. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Publishing; 2003. [Google Scholar]

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Authors
Elvevåg, B., Foltz, P. W., Weinberger, D. R., & Goldberg, T. E.
Affiliations
  • National Institutes of Health (US)
  • New Mexico State University (US)
Corresponding author
Elvevåg, Brita
ORCID
Venue
Schizophrenia Research
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2007-07
Volume
93
Issue
1-3
Pages
304-316
ISSN
0920-9964 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/j.schres.2007.03.001
PMC
PMC1995127
OpenAlex
W2003128044
Cited by
363
References
36
Citations by year
2026: 32 · 2025: 32 · 2024: 33 · 2023: 34 · 2022: 51 · 2021: 28 · 2020: 33 · 2019: 31 · 2018: 14 · 2017: 14 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 7 · 2014: 9 · 2013: 11
FWCI
4.23
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
www.elsevier.com/tdm/userlicense/1.0/ (tdm)
Locations
  • Schizophrenia Research (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Funders
  • National Institutes of Health
  • National Institute of Mental Health (Z01MH002712)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Schizophrenia research and treatment
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Mental Health via Writing
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Mental Health and Psychiatry
Keywords
schizophrenia
MeSH terms
Adult, Communication, Diagnosis, Computer-Assisted, Female, Humans, Interview, Psychological, Male, Middle Aged, Reference Values, Schizophrenia, Schizophrenic Language, Schizophrenic Psychology, Semantics, Sensitivity and Specificity, Software, Speech Production Measurement, Thinking

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