When Proactivity Fails: An Electrophysiological Study of Establishing Reference in Schizophrenia

Kuperberg, Gina R.; Ditman, Tali; Perrachione, Arim Choi

doi:10.1016/j.bpsc.2017.09.007

Cited by 10 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 87 publications

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“…Future work should deepen our insights into this dysfunction in the speech of patients with SZ as compared to that of patients with aphasia and at the neural level. 45 , 46 Such work will provide important targets for future clinical, natural history, and neurobiological studies.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The language profile of formal thought disorder

et al. 2018

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Formal thought disorder (FTD) is clinically manifested as disorganized speech, but there have been only few investigations of its linguistic properties. We examined how disturbance of thought may relate to the referential function of language as expressed in the use of noun phrases (NPs) and the complexity of sentence structures. We used a comic strip description task to elicit language samples from 30 participants with schizophrenia (SZ), 15 with moderate or severe FTD (SZ + FTD), and 15 minimal or no FTD (SZ−FTD), as well as 15 first-degree relatives of people with SZ (FDRs) and 15 neurotypical controls (NC). We predicted that anomalies in the normal referential use of NPs, sub-divided into definite and indefinite NPs, would identify FTD; and also that FTD would also be linked to reduced linguistic complexity as specifically measured by the number of embedded clauses and of grammatical dependents. Participants with SZ + FTD produced more referential anomalies than NC and produced the fewest definite NPs, while FDRs produced the most and thus also differed from NC. When referential anomalies were classed according to the NP type in which they occurred, the SZ + FTD group produced more anomalies in definite NPs than NC. Syntactic errors did not distinguish groups, but the SZ + FTD group exhibited significantly less syntactic complexity than non-SZ groups. Exploratory regression analyses suggested that production of definite NPs distinguished the two SZ groups. These results demonstrate that FTD can be identified in specific grammatical patterns which provide new targets for detection, intervention, and neurobiological studies.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The language profile of formal thought disorder

et al. 2018

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“…Associations between linguistic deficits documented here and these other neuropsychological measures are an important desideratum for future work. As of now, the neurocognitive basis of reference has barely been explored (but see [ 73 – 76 ]), unlike the neurocognitive basis of semantic memory [ 77 – 79 ]. Our results also bear on the questions of what to look for (and not) in speech output investigated for its predictive or diagnostic role, and of how to design new clinical linguistic tools for the early detection of different forms of cognitive decline.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Deficits in nominal reference identify thought disordered speech in a narrative production task

et al. 2018

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Formal thought disorder (TD) is a neuropathology manifest in formal language dysfunction, but few behavioural linguistic studies exist. These have highlighted problems in the domain of semantics and more specifically of reference. Here we aimed for a more complete and systematic linguistic model of TD, focused on (i) a more in-depth analysis of anomalies of reference as depending on the grammatical construction type in which they occur, and (ii) measures of formal grammatical complexity and errors. Narrative speech obtained from 40 patients with schizophrenia, 20 with TD and 20 without, and from 14 healthy controls matched on pre-morbid IQ, was rated blindly. Results showed that of 10 linguistic variables annotated, 4 showed significant differences between groups, including the two patient groups. These all concerned mis-uses of noun phrases (NPs) for purposes of reference, but showed sensitivity to how NPs were classed: definite and pronominal forms of reference were more affected than indefinite and non-pronominal (lexical) NPs. None of the measures of formal grammatical complexity and errors distinguished groups. We conclude that TD exhibits a specific and differentiated linguistic profile, which can illuminate TD neuro-cognitively and inform future neuroimaging studies, and can have clinical utility as a linguistic biomarker.

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“…Recent work in computational linguistics have suggested considerable potential for language as a biomarker in schizophrenia, as automated linguistic measures can predict symptoms of schizophrenia including FTD (Elvevåg et al 2010;Bedi et al 2015;Holshausen et al 2014). Experimental psycholinguistic studies have also revealed numerous language processing anomalies in schizophrenia, largely in comprehension/perception (Titone et al 2007;Kuperberg 2010;Kuperberg et al 2017; but see Kuperberg et al 2018, for a recent study of semantic priming in a naming task), and in part specific to FTD (Kuperberg et al 1998).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Language disintegration under conditions of severe formal thought disorder

Torres

Nieto

Soler

et al. 2019

Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics

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On current models of the language faculty, the language system is taken to be divided by an interface with systems of thought. However, thought of the type expressed in language is difficult to access in language-independent terms. Potential interdependence of the two systems can be addressed by considering language under conditions of pathological changes in the neurotypical thought process. Speech patterns seen in patients with schizophrenia and formal thought disorder (FTD) present an opportunity to do this. Here we reanalyzed a corpus of severely thought-disordered speech with a view to capture patterns of linguistic disintegration comparatively across hierarchical layers of linguistic organization: 1. Referential anomalies, subcategorized into NP type involved, 2. Argument structure, 3. Lexis, and 4. Morphosyntax. Results showed significantly higher error proportions in referential anomalies against all other domains. Morphosyntax and lexis were comparatively least affected, while argument structure was intermediate. No differential impairment was seen in definite vs. indefinite NPs, or 3 rd Person pronouns vs. lexical NPs. Statistically significant differences in error proportions emerged within the domain of pronominals, where covert pronouns were more affected than overt pronouns, and 3 rd Person pronouns more than 1 st and 2 nd Person ones. Moreover, copular clauses were more often anomalous than non-copular ones. These results provide evidence of how language and thought disintegrate together in FTD, with language disintegrating along hierarchical layers of linguistic organization and affecting specific construction types. A relative intactness of language at a procedural, morphosyntactic surface level masks a profound impairment in the referential functioning of language.

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When Proactivity Fails: An Electrophysiological Study of Establishing Reference in Schizophrenia

Cited by 10 publications

References 87 publications

The language profile of formal thought disorder

The language profile of formal thought disorder

Deficits in nominal reference identify thought disordered speech in a narrative production task

Language disintegration under conditions of severe formal thought disorder

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