The role of embodied cognition in linguistic mental health analysis
Open accessAbstract
Drawing on the intersection between embodied cognition and the referential process, where the human body and its environment influence the way a person thinks and feels, we compared two linguistic analysis approaches to see if it was possible to classify self-reported mental health in female veterans from their writing using words affected by the emotional and modality-specific systems in the brain.Drawing on self-reported PTSD, Depression, and psychological distress properties in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) we used interview transcripts (n=40) and compared them to normal bloggers' posts (n=25) and discovered statistically significant differences in language use (total of 330,000 words).We used two linguistic approaches, the Linguistic Inquiry Word Count (LIWC) tool, and an embodied cognition approach (Richness, Personal Pronouns, Referential Activity Power, and Sensory (RPAS) algorithm) to statistically correlate findings.In this exploratory study, findings suggested that deployed female military personnel have a distinct pattern of speech which is more blunted (use fewer unique words but more repetition) than women in the community.This style of language is often seen in individuals with anxiety and depression.Deployment length (2-20 months, average = 8.5) directly correlated to increased blunted speech and was related to an increased feeling of emotional numbness and greater un-conscious reliance on memories when generating language.There were also language differences in the female military cohort who self-report more mental health symptoms.Those with self-reported mental health conditions (n=7) used words that focussed on the past and used fewer 'they' type words and isolated themselves to minimise stigma.This stigmatised language implied female military deployees with mental health symptoms felt isolated from their peers, through 'othering' and members of an outgroup.This study supports the idea that linguistic analysis using embodied cognition can discriminate between military females with self-reported mental health and those without and may be a valuable aid in highlighting post-traumatic stress in veterans.
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Kernot et al linked more frequent use of past tense to increased symptom severity.
“However, Kernot et al 76 provided a contrasting perspective, linking a more frequent use of past tense to increased symptom severity.”
From Linguistic markers for identifying post-traumatic stress disorder and associated symptoms: a systematic literature review (2025) · cites this paper as [76]
The Results report a higher ‘focuspast’ word score among women with high versus low self-reported PTSD scores (8.54 versus 7.28), and the Discussion describes greater use of words focused on the past among women reporting more mental health symptoms. The paper does not specifically report past-tense usage, so that narrower wording is not established by its finding. (LLM, conf=0.86)
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Quillivic, R., Auxéméry, Y., Gayraud, F., Dayan, J., & Mesmoudi, S. (2025) · Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association · doi:10.1093/jamia/ocaf075 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
- Authors
- Kernot, D., Hooff, M. V., Lawrence-Wood, E., Glenny, L., Snowden, C., Green, K., & Son, C.
- Affiliations
- Defence Science and Technology Group (AU)
- The University of Melbourne (AU)
- University of South Australia (AU)
- Corresponding author
- David Kernot
- ORCID
- David Kernot
- Venue
- MODSIM2021, 24th International Congress on Modelling and Simulation.
- Published
- 2021-12-16
- ISSN
- 2205-5061 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W4200132634
- Cited by
- 1
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1
- FWCI
- 0.00
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- MODSIM (publishedVersion)
- Adelaide Research & Scholarship (AR&S) (University of Adelaide) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Hospital Research Foundation
- University of Adelaide
- Defence Science and Technology Group
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Mental Health via Writing
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Research
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Embodied and Extended Cognition
- Keywords
- embodied cognition, women veterans, mental health, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, psychological distress, linguistic analysis, emotional numbness, LIWC, stigma, othering, language and emotion
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