Updating verbal fluency analysis for the 21st century: Applications for psychiatry

Terje B Holmlund; Jian Cheng; Peter W Foltz; Alex S Cohen; Brita Elvevåg

doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2019.02.014

Updating verbal fluency analysis for the 21st century: Applications for psychiatry

Psychiatry Res. 2019 Mar:273:767-769. doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2019.02.014. Epub 2019 Feb 7.

Authors

Terje B Holmlund¹, Jian Cheng², Peter W Foltz³, Alex S Cohen⁴, Brita Elvevåg⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Tromsø, UNN Åsgård, Postbox 6124, 9291 Tromsø, Norway. Electronic address: terje.holmlund@uit.no.
² Analytic Measures Inc., Palo Alto, CA, USA.
³ Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Colorado Boulder, USA; Pearson PLC, London, England.
⁴ Department of Psychology, Louisiana State University, USA.
⁵ Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Tromsø, UNN Åsgård, Postbox 6124, 9291 Tromsø, Norway; Norwegian Centre for eHealth Research, University Hospital of North Norway, Tromsø, Norway.

PMID: 31207864
DOI: 10.1016/j.psychres.2019.02.014

Abstract

Evaluating patients' verbal fluency by counting the number of unique words (e.g., animals) produced in a short-period (e.g., 1-3 min) is one of the most widely employed cognitive tests in psychiatric research. We introduce new methods to analyze fluency output that leverage modern computational language technology. This enables moving beyond simple word counts to charting the temporal dynamics of speech and objectively quantifying the semantic relationship of the utterances. These metrics can greatly expand the current psychiatric research toolkit and can help refine clinical theories regarding the nature of putative language differences in patients.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adult
Female
Humans
Language
Language Tests*
Male
Neuropsychological Tests*
Psychiatry / methods*
Psychiatry / trends
Semantics
Speech / physiology*
Verbal Behavior / physiology*