Speech Analysis Software Predicts Psychosis in Those At Risk With 83% Accuracy
Computer-based analyses of speech transcripts obtained from interviews with at-risk youths were able to predict which youths would later develop psy-chosis within two years, with an accuracy of up to 83 percent. In two independent cohorts of young people at risk for psychosis, a disturbance in the flow of meaning when speaking, other-wise known as being tangential or going off track, predicted who would later develop psychosis.
This same computer-based language classifier was able to predict psychosis onset in a second at-risk cohort with 79 percent accuracy, and could discriminate speech from individuals with psy-chosis from healthy individuals with an accuracy of 72 percent.
Taken together, the results from this study suggest that this technology has the potential to im-prove prediction of psychosis and other disorders.
The results of the study will be published online in World Psychiatry on January 22.
Disorganized thinking, a symptom of psychosis, is regularly assessed using interview-based clinical ratings of speech. It is characterized by tangential language, looseness of associations, and reduced complexity of speech. While it can be severe enough to impair effective communi-cation, language disturbance is more typically a subtle but persistent feature that can be present prior to the onset of psychosis in young people at risk.
Open access research in World Psychiatry. doi:10.1002/wps.20491
