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Formulaic Language in People with Probable Alzheimer's Disease: A Frequency-Based Approach.
Vitor C Zimmerer1, Mark Wibrow2, Rosemary A Varley1
1Department of Language and Cognition, University College London, London, UK.
Journal of Alzheimer'S Disease : JAD
|July 4, 2016
Summary
Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients use more formulaic language, identified by word co-occurrence frequency. This linguistic marker, analyzed using the FLAT tool, can distinguish AD from controls and track disease progression.
Area of Science:
- Neurolinguistics
- Cognitive Science
- Computational Linguistics
Background:
- Language change is a key indicator of cognitive decline in Alzheimer's disease (AD) and dementia.
- Increased use of language formulas (word combinations processed holistically) is observed in AD.
- High word co-occurrence frequency suggests a higher likelihood of formulaic language.
Purpose of the Study:
- To assess if word co-occurrence frequency distinguishes probable AD from controls.
- To determine if this measure correlates with disease progression over time.
Main Methods:
- Developed the Frequency in Language Analysis Tool (FLAT) to quantify formulaicity.
- Compared individual language samples against the British National Corpus (BNC) co-occurrence data.
- Analyzed data from the Pitt Corpus (DementiaBank) alongside conventional linguistic variables.
Main Results:
- Both conventional and co-occurrence variables differentiated AD patients from controls.
- Individuals with probable AD exhibited higher formulaic language use based on co-occurrence data.
- Co-occurrence variables uniquely correlated with disease progression.
Conclusions:
- Word co-occurrence frequency is a valid indicator of formulaicity in language.
- This measure offers a valuable method for characterizing language changes associated with Alzheimer's disease.
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