TY - JOUR
T1 - Construct validity for computational linguistic metrics in individuals at clinical risk for psychosis
T2 - Associations with clinical ratings
AU - Bilgrami, Zarina R.
AU - Sarac, Cansu
AU - Srivastava, Agrima
AU - Herrera, Shaynna N.
AU - Azis, Matilda
AU - Haas, Shalaila S.
AU - Shaik, Riaz B.
AU - Parvaz, Muhammad A.
AU - Mittal, Vijay A.
AU - Cecchi, Guillermo
AU - Corcoran, Cheryl M.
N1 - Funding Information:
This study was funded by R01MH107558.
Funding Information:
This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health : R01MH107558 . We are grateful to the participants who made this research possible and the research staff for their contributions.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021
PY - 2022/7
Y1 - 2022/7
N2 - Language deficits are prevalent in psychotic illness, including its risk states, and are related to marked impairment in functioning. It is therefore important to characterize language impairment in the psychosis spectrum in order to develop potential preventive interventions. Natural language processing (NLP) metrics of semantic coherence and syntactic complexity have been used to discriminate schizophrenia patients from healthy controls (HC) and predict psychosis onset in individuals at clinical high-risk (CHR) for psychosis. To date, no studies have yet examined the construct validity of key NLP features with respect to clinical ratings of thought disorder in a CHR cohort. Herein we test the association of key NLP metrics of coherence and complexity with ratings of positive and negative thought disorder, respectively, in 60 CHR individuals, using Andreasen's Scale of Assessment of Thought, Language and Communication (TLC) Scale to measure of positive and negative thought disorder. As hypothesized, in CHR individuals, the NLP metric of semantic coherence was significantly correlated with positive thought disorder severity and the NLP metrics of complexity (sentence length and determiner use) were correlated with negative thought disorder severity. The finding of construct validity supports the premise that NLP analytics, at least in respect to core features of reduction of coherence and complexity, are capturing clinically relevant language disturbances in risk states for psychosis. Further psychometric study is required, in respect to reliability and other forms of validity.
AB - Language deficits are prevalent in psychotic illness, including its risk states, and are related to marked impairment in functioning. It is therefore important to characterize language impairment in the psychosis spectrum in order to develop potential preventive interventions. Natural language processing (NLP) metrics of semantic coherence and syntactic complexity have been used to discriminate schizophrenia patients from healthy controls (HC) and predict psychosis onset in individuals at clinical high-risk (CHR) for psychosis. To date, no studies have yet examined the construct validity of key NLP features with respect to clinical ratings of thought disorder in a CHR cohort. Herein we test the association of key NLP metrics of coherence and complexity with ratings of positive and negative thought disorder, respectively, in 60 CHR individuals, using Andreasen's Scale of Assessment of Thought, Language and Communication (TLC) Scale to measure of positive and negative thought disorder. As hypothesized, in CHR individuals, the NLP metric of semantic coherence was significantly correlated with positive thought disorder severity and the NLP metrics of complexity (sentence length and determiner use) were correlated with negative thought disorder severity. The finding of construct validity supports the premise that NLP analytics, at least in respect to core features of reduction of coherence and complexity, are capturing clinically relevant language disturbances in risk states for psychosis. Further psychometric study is required, in respect to reliability and other forms of validity.
KW - Natural language processing
KW - Psychosis risk
KW - Thought disorder
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U2 - 10.1016/j.schres.2022.01.019
DO - 10.1016/j.schres.2022.01.019
M3 - Article
C2 - 35094918
AN - SCOPUS:85123720705
SN - 0920-9964
VL - 245
SP - 90
EP - 96
JO - Schizophrenia Research
JF - Schizophrenia Research
ER -