Can the Acoustic Analysis of Expressive Prosody Discriminate Schizophrenia?
Span J Psychol
; 18: E86, 2015 Nov 02.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-26522128
ABSTRACT
Emotional states, attitudes and intentions are often conveyed by modulations in the tone of voice. Impaired recognition of emotions from a tone of voice (receptive prosody) has been described as characteristic symptoms of schizophrenia. However, the ability to express non-verbal information in speech (expressive prosody) has been understudied. This paper describes a useful technique for quantifying the degree of expressive prosody deficits in schizophrenia, using a semi-automatic method, and evaluates this method's ability to discriminate between patient and control groups. Forty-five medicated patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia were matched with thirty-five healthy comparison subjects. Production of expressive prosodic speech was analyzed using variation in fundamental frequency (F0) measures on an emotionally neutral reading task. Results revealed that patients with schizophrenia exhibited significantly more pauses (p < .001), were slower (p < .001), and showed less pitch variability in speech (p < .05) and fewer variations in syllable timing (p < .001) than control subjects. These features have been associated with «flat¼ speech prosody. Signal processing algorithms applied to speech were shown to be capable of discriminating between patients and controls with an accuracy of 93.8%. These speech parameters may have a diagnostic and prognosis value and therefore could be used as a dependent measure in clinical trials.
Palavras-chave
Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Esquizofrenia
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Acústica da Fala
Tipo de estudo:
Observational_studies
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Prevalence_studies
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Prognostic_studies
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Risk_factors_studies
Limite:
Adult
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Female
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Humans
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Male
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Span J Psychol
Assunto da revista:
PSICOLOGIA
Ano de publicação:
2015
Tipo de documento:
Article
País de publicação:
ENGLAND
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ESCOCIA
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GB
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GREAT BRITAIN
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INGLATERRA
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REINO UNIDO
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SCOTLAND
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UK
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UNITED KINGDOM