A Systematic Review and Bayesian Meta-Analysis of Acoustic Measures of Prosody in Parkinson's Disease.

PURPOSE: Linguistic prosody is affected in Parkinson's disease (PD), which implicates the basal ganglia's role in the production of prosody. However, there is no recent systematic synthesis of the available acoustic evidence of prosodic impairment in PD. This study aimed to identify the acoustic features of linguistic prosody that are consistently affected in PD. METHOD: The authors systematically reviewed articles that reported acoustic features of prosodic production in PD. Articles focused on fundamental frequency (F0) and its variability, intensity and its variability, speech and articulation rate, and pause duration and ratio. From a total of 648 records identified, 36 met criteria for inclusion and exclusion. For each acoustic measurement and task, data from people with PD (PwPD) were compared with those from controls to extract effect sizes. Pooled effect sizes were estimated using robust Bayesian hierarchical regression models. RESULTS: PD was associated with decreased F0 variability and increased pause duration. There was limited evidence of reduced intensity variability and speech rate in PwPD. No evidence was found to suggest that PD affects articulation rate or pause ratio. CONCLUSIONS: The primary acoustic parameters of prosody affected by PD are F0 variability and pause duration. The identification of these acoustic parameters has important clinical implications for the selection of PD management strategies. The association of F0 variability and pause duration with PD suggests that the neural circuits controlling these parameters are at least partly shared and might include the basal ganglia. While the current study focused on the phonetic realization of prosodic cues, future studies should examine whether and how PD affects prosody at higher levels of processing. SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.25892923.

Evidence for Infant-directed Speech Preference Is Consistent Across Large-scale, Multi-site Replication and Meta-analysis.

There is substantial evidence that infants prefer infant-directed speech (IDS) to adult-directed speech (ADS). The strongest evidence for this claim has come from two large-scale investigations: i) a community-augmented meta-analysis of published behavioral studies and ii) a large-scale multi-lab replication study. In this paper, we aim to improve our understanding of the IDS preference and its boundary conditions by combining and comparing these two data sources across key population and design characteristics of the underlying studies. Our analyses reveal that both the meta-analysis and multi-lab replication show moderate effect sizes (d ≈ 0.35 for each estimate) and that both of these effects persist when relevant study-level moderators are added to the models (i.e., experimental methods, infant ages, and native languages). However, while the overall effect size estimates were similar, the two sources diverged in the effects of key moderators: both infant age and experimental method predicted IDS preference in the multi-lab replication study, but showed no effect in the meta-analysis. These results demonstrate that the IDS preference generalizes across a variety of experimental conditions and sampling characteristics, while simultaneously identifying key differences in the empirical picture offered by each source individually and pinpointing areas where substantial uncertainty remains about the influence of theoretically central moderators on IDS preference. Overall, our results show how meta-analyses and multi-lab replications can be used in tandem to understand the robustness and generalizability of developmental phenomena.

Different in different ways: A network-analysis approach to voice and prosody in Autism Spectrum Disorder.

The current study investigated whether the difficulty in finding group differences in prosody between speakers with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and neurotypical (NT) speakers might be explained by identifying different acoustic profiles of speakers which, while still perceived as atypical, might be characterized by different acoustic qualities. We modelled the speech from a selection of speakers (N = 26), with and without ASD, as a network of nodes defined by acoustic features. We used a community-detection algorithm to identify clusters of speakers who were acoustically similar and compared these clusters with atypicality ratings by naïve and expert human raters. Results identified three clusters: one primarily composed of speakers with ASD, one of mostly NT speakers, and one comprised of an even mixture of ASD and NT speakers. The human raters were highly reliable at distinguishing speakers with and without ASD, regardless of which cluster the speaker was in. These results suggest that community-detection methods using a network approach may complement commonly-employed human ratings to improve our understanding of the intonation profiles in ASD.

Maternal depression and anxiety symptoms across pregnancy and the postnatal period: Modest associations between depression symptoms and infant sleep outcomes.

Maternal depression and anxiety symptoms are common across the perinatal period and are associated with a raised risk for adverse child outcomes. While substantial evidence exists for child outcomes such as behaviour, language and cognition, infant sleep has been less studied. In this longitudinal study, we examined the association between maternal symptoms of depression and anxiety and mother-reported infant sleep at 6 and 12 months. Across the four infant sleep outcomes, total sleep time, sleep onset latency, number of awakenings and a maternal perception variable, we found modest effects for concomitant depression symptoms. There were almost no additional effects for anxiety symptoms beyond that already accounted for by depression. Using trajectory modelling of maternal symptoms at five time points, we found more robust effects for maternal groups with postnatally emerging symptoms over prenatally present symptoms across all four sleep outcomes. Our strongest finding was that mothers with postnatal depression symptoms were more likely to perceive their infant's sleep as problematic compared with all other mothers. Where we found effects on duration-based infant sleep outcomes overall, these were small and clearest for depressive symptoms over anxiety symptoms. For both nighttime awakenings and perception of sleep as a problem, effects were apparent only for mothers in the postnatal symptom groups, and not for prenatal symptoms, at both infant ages six and 12 months. Our sample was a relatively high-socioeconomic group with low symptoms overall, and findings may not generalize to more vulnerable populations.

Language-Specific Constraints on Conversation: Evidence from Danish and Norwegian.

Establishing and maintaining mutual understanding in everyday conversations is crucial. To do so, people employ a variety of conversational devices, such as backchannels, repair, and linguistic entrainment. Here, we explore whether the use of conversational devices might be influenced by cross-linguistic differences in the speakers' native language, comparing two matched languages-Danish and Norwegian-differing primarily in their sound structure, with Danish being more opaque, that is, less acoustically distinguished. Across systematically manipulated conversational contexts, we find that processes supporting mutual understanding in conversations vary with external constraints: across different contexts and, crucially, across languages. In accord with our predictions, linguistic entrainment was overall higher in Danish than in Norwegian, while backchannels and repairs presented a more nuanced pattern. These findings are compatible with the hypothesis that native speakers of Danish may compensate for its opaque sound structure by adopting a top-down strategy of building more conversational redundancy through entrainment, which also might reduce the need for repairs. These results suggest that linguistic differences might be met by systematic changes in language processing and use. This paves the way for further cross-linguistic investigations and critical assessment of the interplay between cultural and linguistic factors on the one hand and conversational dynamics on the other.

Repeat After Me? Both Children With and Without Autism Commonly Align Their Language With That of Their Caregivers.

Linguistic repetitions in children are conceptualized as negative in children with autism - echolalia, without communicative purpose - and positive in typically developing (TD) children - linguistic alignment involved in shared engagement, common ground and language acquisition. To investigate this apparent contradiction we analyzed spontaneous speech in 67 parent-child dyads from a longitudinal corpus (30 minutes of play activities at 6 visits over 2 years). We included 32 children with autism and 35 linguistically matched TD children (mean age at recruitment 32.76 and 20.27 months). We found a small number of exact repetitions in both groups (roughly 1% of utterances across visits), which increased over time in children with autism and decreased in the TD group. Partial repetitions were much more frequent: children reused caregivers' words at high rates regardless of diagnostic group (24% of utterances at first visit), and this increased in frequency (but not level) over time, faster for TD children (at final visit: 33% for autism, 40% for TD). The same happened for partial repetition of syntax and semantic alignment. However, chance alignment (as measured by surrogate pairs) also increased and findings for developmental changes were reliable only for syntactic and semantic alignment. Children with richer linguistic abilities also displayed a higher tendency to partially re-use their caregivers' language (alignment rates and semantic alignment). This highlights that all children commonly re-used the words, syntax, and topics of their caregivers, albeit with some quantitative differences, and that most repetition was at least potentially productive, with repeated language being re-contextualized and integrated with non-repeated language. The salience of echolalia in ASD might be partially explained by slight differences in frequency, amplified by lower semantic alignment, persistence over time, and expectations of echolalia. More in-depth qualitative and quantitative analyses of how repetitions are used and received in context are needed.

The Social Route to Abstraction: Interaction and Diversity Enhance Performance and Transfer in a Rule-Based Categorization Task.

Capacities for abstract thinking and problem-solving are central to human cognition. Processes of abstraction allow the transfer of experiences and knowledge between contexts helping us make informed decisions in new or changing contexts. While we are often inclined to relate such reasoning capacities to individual minds and brains, they may in fact be contingent on human-specific modes of collaboration, dialogue, and shared attention. In an experimental study, we test the hypothesis that social interaction enhances cognitive processes of rule-induction, which in turn improves problem-solving performance. Through three sessions of increasing complexity, individuals and groups were presented with a problem-solving task requiring them to categorize a set of visual stimuli. To assess the character of participants' problem representations, after each training session, they were presented with a transfer task involving stimuli that differed in appearance, but shared relations among features with the training set. Besides, we compared participants' categorization behaviors to simulated agents relying on exemplar learning. We found that groups performed superior to individuals and agents in the training sessions and were more likely to correctly generalize their observations in the transfer phase, especially in the high complexity session, suggesting that groups more effectively induced underlying categorization rules from the stimuli than individuals and agents. Crucially, variation in performance among groups was predicted by semantic diversity in members' dialogical contributions, suggesting a link between social interaction, cognitive diversity, and abstraction.

Identifying Medications Underlying Communication Atypicalities in Psychotic and Affective Disorders: A Pharmacovigilance Study Within the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System.

PURPOSE: Communication atypicalities are considered promising markers of a broad range of clinical conditions. However, little is known about the mechanisms and confounders underlying them. Medications might have a crucial, relatively unknown role both as potential confounders and offering an insight on the mechanisms at work. The integration of regulatory documents with disproportionality analyses provides a more comprehensive picture to account for in future investigations of communication-related markers. The aim of this study was to identify a list of drugs potentially associated with communicative atypicalities within psychotic and affective disorders. METHOD: We developed a query using the Medical Dictionary for Regulatory Activities to search for communicative atypicalities within the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (updated June 2021). A Bonferroni-corrected disproportionality analysis (reporting odds ratio) was separately performed on spontaneous reports involving psychotic, affective, and non-neuropsychiatric disorders, to account for the confounding role of different underlying conditions. Drug-adverse event associations not already reported in the Side Effect Resource database of labeled adverse drug reactions (unexpected) were subjected to further robustness analyses to account for expected biases. RESULTS: A list of 291 expected and 91 unexpected potential confounding medications was identified, including drugs that may irritate (inhalants) or desiccate (anticholinergics) the larynx, impair speech motor control (antipsychotics), or induce nodules (acitretin) or necrosis (vascular endothelial growth factor receptor inhibitors) on vocal cords; sedatives and stimulants; neurotoxic agents (anti-infectives); and agents acting on neurotransmitter pathways (dopamine agonists). CONCLUSIONS: We provide a list of medications to account for in future studies of communication-related markers in affective and psychotic disorders. The current test case illustrates rigorous procedures for digital phenotyping, and the methodological tools implemented for large-scale disproportionality analyses can be considered a road map for investigations of communication-related markers in other clinical populations. SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.23721345.

Infant-directed speech does not always involve exaggerated vowel distinctions: Evidence from Danish.

This study compared the acoustic properties of 26 (100% female, 100% monolingual) Danish caregivers' spontaneous speech addressed to their 11- to 24-month-old infants (infant-directed speech, IDS) and an adult experimenter (adult-directed speech, ADS). The data were collected between 2016 and 2018 in Aarhus, Denmark. Prosodic properties of Danish IDS conformed to cross-linguistic patterns, with a higher pitch, greater pitch variability, and slower articulation rate than ADS. However, an acoustic analysis of vocalic properties revealed that Danish IDS had a reduced or similar vowel space, higher within-vowel variability, raised formants, and lower degree of vowel discriminability compared to ADS. None of the measures, except articulation rate, showed age-related differences. These results push for future research to conduct theory-driven comparisons across languages with distinct phonological systems.

The Dynamic Interplay of Kinetic and Linguistic Coordination in Danish and Norwegian Conversation.

In conversation, individuals work together to achieve communicative goals, complementing and aligning language and body with each other. An important emerging question is whether interlocutors entrain with one another equally across linguistic levels (e.g., lexical, syntactic, and semantic) and modalities (i.e., speech and gesture), or whether there are complementary patterns of behaviors, with some levels or modalities diverging and others converging in coordinated fashions. This study assesses how kinematic and linguistic entrainment interact with one another across levels of measurement, and according to communicative context. We analyzed data from two matched corpora of dyadic interaction between-respectively-Danish and Norwegian native speakers engaged in affiliative conversations and task-oriented conversations. We assessed linguistic entrainment at the lexical, syntactic, and semantic level, and kinetic alignment of the head and hands using video-based motion tracking and dynamic time warping. We tested whether-across the two languages-linguistic alignment correlates with kinetic alignment, and whether these kinetic-linguistic associations are modulated either by the type of conversation or by the language spoken. We found that kinetic entrainment was positively associated with low-level linguistic (i.e., lexical) entrainment, while negatively associated with high-level linguistic (i.e., semantic) entrainment, in a cross-linguistically robust way. Our findings suggest that conversation makes use of a dynamic coordination of similarity and complementarity both between individuals as well as between different communicative modalities, and provides evidence for a multimodal, interpersonal synergy account of interaction.

Linguistic markers of psychosis in Mandarin Chinese: Relations to theory of mind.

Disorganized and impoverished language is a key feature of schizophrenia (Sz), but whether and which linguistic changes previously observed in Indo-European languages generalize to other languages remains unclear. Targeting Mandarin Chinese, we aimed to profile aspects of grammatical complexity that we hypothesized would be reduced in schizophrenia in a task of verbalizing social events. 51 individuals with Sz and 39 controls participated in the animated triangles task, a standardized measure of theory of mind (ToM), in which participants describe triangles moving in either a random or an 'intentional' condition. Results revealed that clauses embedded as arguments in other clauses were reduced in Sz, and that both groups produced such clauses and grammatical aspect more frequently in the intentional condition. ToM scores specifically correlated with production of embedded argument clauses. These results document grammatical impoverishment in Sz in Chinese across several structural domains, which in some of its specific aspects relate to mentalizing performance.

Voice Patterns as Markers of Schizophrenia: Building a Cumulative Generalizable Approach Via a Cross-Linguistic and Meta-analysis Based Investigation.

BACKGROUND AND HYPOTHESIS: Voice atypicalities are potential markers of clinical features of schizophrenia (eg, negative symptoms). A recent meta-analysis identified an acoustic profile associated with schizophrenia (reduced pitch variability and increased pauses), but also highlighted shortcomings in the field: small sample sizes, little attention to the heterogeneity of the disorder, and to generalizing findings to diverse samples and languages. STUDY DESIGN: We provide a critical cumulative approach to vocal atypicalities in schizophrenia, where we conceptually and statistically build on previous studies. We aim at identifying a cross-linguistically reliable acoustic profile of schizophrenia and assessing sources of heterogeneity (symptomatology, pharmacotherapy, clinical and social characteristics). We relied on previous meta-analysis to build and analyze a large cross-linguistic dataset of audio recordings of 231 patients with schizophrenia and 238 matched controls (>4000 recordings in Danish, German, Mandarin and Japanese). We used multilevel Bayesian modeling, contrasting meta-analytically informed and skeptical inferences. STUDY RESULTS: We found only a minimal generalizable acoustic profile of schizophrenia (reduced pitch variability), while duration atypicalities replicated only in some languages. We identified reliable associations between acoustic profile and individual differences in clinical ratings of negative symptoms, medication, age and gender. However, these associations vary across languages. CONCLUSIONS: The findings indicate that a strong cross-linguistically reliable acoustic profile of schizophrenia is unlikely. Rather, if we are to devise effective clinical applications able to target different ranges of patients, we need first to establish larger and more diverse cross-linguistic datasets, focus on individual differences, and build self-critical cumulative approaches.

Natural Language Processing Markers for Psychosis and Other Psychiatric Disorders: Emerging Themes and Research Agenda From a Cross-Linguistic Workshop.

This workshop summary on natural language processing (NLP) markers for psychosis and other psychiatric disorders presents some of the clinical and research issues that NLP markers might address and some of the activities needed to move in that direction. We propose that the optimal development of NLP markers would occur in the context of research efforts to map out the underlying mechanisms of psychosis and other disorders. In this workshop, we identified some of the challenges to be addressed in developing and implementing NLP markers-based Clinical Decision Support Systems (CDSSs) in psychiatric practice, especially with respect to psychosis. Of note, a CDSS is meant to enhance decision-making by clinicians by providing additional relevant information primarily through software (although CDSSs are not without risks). In psychiatry, a field that relies on subjective clinical ratings that condense rich temporal behavioral information, the inclusion of computational quantitative NLP markers can plausibly lead to operationalized decision models in place of idiosyncratic ones, although ethical issues must always be paramount.

Caregiver linguistic alignment to autistic and typically developing children: A natural language processing approach illuminates the interactive components of language development.

BACKGROUND: Language development is a highly interactive activity. However, most research on linguistic environment has focused on the quantity and complexity of linguistic input to children, with current models showing that complexity facilitates language in both typically developing (TD) and autistic children. AIMS: After reviewing existing work on caregiver engagement of children's utterances, we aim to operationalize such engagement with automated measures of linguistic alignment, thereby providing scalable tools to assess caregivers' active reuse of their children's language. By assessing the presence of alignment, its sensitivity to the child's individual differences and how well it predicts language development beyond current models across the two groups, we showcase the usefulness of the approach and provide initial empirical foundations for further conceptual and empirical investigations. METHODS: We measure lexical, syntactic and semantic types of caregiver alignment in a longitudinal corpus involving 32 adult-autistic child and 35 adult-TD child dyads, with children between 2 and 5 years of age. We assess the extent to which caregivers repeat their children's words, syntax, and semantics, and whether these repetitions predict language development beyond more standard predictors. RESULTS: Caregivers tend to re-use their child's language in a way that is related to the child's individual, primarily linguistic, differences. Caregivers' alignment provides unique information improving our ability to predict future language development in both typical and autistic children. CONCLUSIONS: We provide evidence that language development also relies on interactive conversational processes, previously understudied. We share carefully detailed methods, and open-source scripts so as to systematically extend our approach to new contexts and languages.

Beyond Single-Mindedness: A Figure-Ground Reversal for the Cognitive Sciences.

A fundamental fact about human minds is that they are never truly alone: all minds are steeped in situated interaction. That social interaction matters is recognized by any experimentalist who seeks to exclude its influence by studying individuals in isolation. On this view, interaction complicates cognition. Here, we explore the more radical stance that interaction co-constitutes cognition: that we benefit from looking beyond single minds toward cognition as a process involving interacting minds. All around the cognitive sciences, there are approaches that put interaction center stage. Their diverse and pluralistic origins may obscure the fact that collectively, they harbor insights and methods that can respecify foundational assumptions and fuel novel interdisciplinary work. What might the cognitive sciences gain from stronger interactional foundations? This represents, we believe, one of the key questions for the future. Writing as a transdisciplinary collective assembled from across the classic cognitive science hexagon and beyond, we highlight the opportunity for a figure-ground reversal that puts interaction at the heart of cognition. The interactive stance is a way of seeing that deserves to be a key part of the conceptual toolkit of cognitive scientists.

Quantifying the interplay of conversational devices in building mutual understanding.

Humans readily engage in idle chat and heated discussions and negotiate tough joint decisions without ever having to think twice about how to keep the conversation grounded in mutual understanding. However, current attempts at identifying and assessing the conversational devices that make this possible are fragmented across disciplines and investigate single devices within single contexts. We present a comprehensive conceptual framework to investigate conversational devices, their relations, and how they adjust to contextual demands. In two corpus studies, we systematically test the role of three conversational devices: backchannels, repair, and linguistic entrainment. Contrasting affiliative and task-oriented conversations within participants, we find that conversational devices adaptively adjust to the increased need for precision in the latter: We show that low-precision devices such as backchannels are more frequent in affiliative conversations, whereas more costly but higher-precision mechanisms, such as specific repairs, are more frequent in task-oriented conversations. Further, task-oriented conversations involve higher complementarity of contributions in terms of the content and perspective: lower semantic entrainment and less frequent (but richer) lexical and syntactic entrainment. Finally, we show that the observed variations in the use of conversational devices are potentially adaptive: pairs of interlocutors that show stronger linguistic complementarity perform better across the two tasks. By combining motivated comparisons of several conversational contexts and theoretically informed computational analyses of empirical data the present work lays the foundations for a comprehensive conceptual framework for understanding the use of conversational devices in dialogue. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Behavioral excess and disruptive conduct: A historical and taxonomic approach to the origin of the 'impulse control disorders' diagnostic construct.

AIMS: Impulse control disorders (ICDs) are iatrogenic and idiopathic conditions with psychosocial and economic consequences for the affected individuals and their families (e.g. bankruptcy and divorce). However, the definition of ICDs has changed over time, and ICDs are not consistently included within existing taxonomies. We discuss the origins of the ICD diagnostic construct and its unsolved tensions. METHODS: To contextualize the ICD diagnostic construct, we provided an overview of its origins in past centuries and followed its development across multiple editions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual and the International Classification of Diseases, as well as its definition within emerging ontologies. RESULTS: Two independent roots of the ICD construct emerged: (a) the interest in behavioral excess as expressed in encyclopedic compilations (18th century) and (b) the juridical debate on disruptive conduct and responsibility (19th-20th centuries). These roots underlie the repeated taxonomic remodeling observed throughout the 20th and 21st centuries and three critical issues persisting in both clinical practice and research. First, the number of ICDs keeps increasing across the spectrum of human behaviors, disregarding common pathogenetic and phenomenological grounds. Secondly, ICDs substantially overlap with other mental conditions. Impulsivity is often neglected as a minor inconvenience or side effect when co-occurring with major diagnoses (e.g. depression) and therefore inadequately managed. Finally, ICDs' definitions display an unsolved tension between being conceived as hobby, moral fault or pathological drive, which may be responsible for stigma and delayed intervention. CONCLUSION: The reasons that made impulse control disorders (ICDs) difficult to define from their first conceptualization are the same reasons that now complicate taxonomic efforts and diagnosis. Tracing back ICDs' roots and criticalities can help to define a common and less ambiguous theoretical framework, which may also result in the demise of the ICD construct and a move towards more clearly defined and more useful ontologies.

A systematic review and Bayesian meta-analysis of the acoustic features of infant-directed speech.

When speaking to infants, adults often produce speech that differs systematically from that directed to other adults. To quantify the acoustic properties of this speech style across a wide variety of languages and cultures, we extracted results from empirical studies on the acoustic features of infant-directed speech. We analysed data from 88 unique studies (734 effect sizes) on the following five acoustic parameters that have been systematically examined in the literature: fundamental frequency (f0), f0 variability, vowel space area, articulation rate and vowel duration. Moderator analyses were conducted in hierarchical Bayesian robust regression models to examine how these features change with infant age and differ across languages, experimental tasks and recording environments. The moderator analyses indicated that f0, articulation rate and vowel duration became more similar to adult-directed speech over time, whereas f0 variability and vowel space area exhibited stability throughout development. These results point the way for future research to disentangle different accounts of the functions and learnability of infant-directed speech by conducting theory-driven comparisons among different languages and using computational models to formulate testable predictions.