Prosodic characteristics of speakers with schizophrenia disorders: Preliminary data.

Abstract

This study aims to provide preliminary data on prosodic characteristics of speakers with schizophrenia as the first phase of a larger study that explores acoustic vocal markers of schizophrenia for the ultimate purpose of differential diagnosis of this disorder. Only a few studies have reported acoustic characteristics of individuals with schizophrenia including flattened intonation [Covington et al. (2005)] and an increase in pause duration [Rapcan et al. (2010)] compared to healthy speakers. For this presentation, 100‐s‐long spontaneous speech samples produced by three female speakers with schizophrenia were analyzed and results were compared to three female speakers with bipolar disorder as a psychiatric control group. Speech recordings were first segmented into a total of 165 breath groups, and then from each breath group, acoustic measures were made including (1) mean and range of fundamental frequency contour, (2) mean and range of intensity contour, (3) duration and frequency of pauses, and (4) speaking/articulation rate. It is expected that the results from these preliminary data will further motivate investigations of negative symptoms of speakers with schizophrenia and the development of automated tools for differential diagnosis of schizophrenia from other psychological conditions known to exhibit symptoms similar to those in schizophrenia such as depression and anxiety.