Effects of a Concurrent Working Memory Task on Speech Acoustics in Parkinson's Disease

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of a concurrent working memory task on acoustic measures of speech in individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD).

Individuals with PD and age- and sex-matched controls performed a speaking task with and without a Stroop-like concurrent working memory task. Cepstral peak prominence, low-to-high spectral energy ratio, fundamental frequency (f_o) standard deviation, articulation rate, pause duration, articulatory-acoustic vowel space, relative f_o, mean voice onset time (VOT), and VOT variability were calculated for each condition. Mixed-model analyses of variance were performed to determine the effects of group, condition (presence of the concurrent working memory task), and their interaction on the acoustic measures.

All measures except for VOT variability, mean pause duration, and relative f_o offset differed between people with and without PD. Cepstral peak prominence, articulation rate, and relative f_o offset differed as a function of condition. However, no measures indicated disparate effects of condition as a function of group.

Although differentially impactful on limb motor function in PD, here a concurrent working memory task was not found to be differentially disruptive to speech acoustics in PD.

https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.24759648.