Evidence for gesture-speech mismatch detection impairments in schizophrenia.
Patients with schizophrenia suffer from impairments in the perception and production of gestures. The extent to which patients can access the semantic association between speech and co-verbal gestures in concrete or abstract/metaphorical meaning contexts is unknown. We investigated 1) how patients differ from controls in gesture matching performance, 2) how performance differs in the context of abstract versus concrete meaning, and 3) whether formal thought disorder (FTD) symptom severity predicts task impairment. Forty-five patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders (two subgroups, mild and severe) took part in this study. Participants were presented with video clips, each showing an a…
The Neural Basis of Idea Density During Natural Spoken Language
Idea density (ID) evolved as a quantification of propositional base structure. Besides its function as a measure of linguistic complexity, ID has also been used as an index of general linguistic ability. In order to find the neural basis for the processing of high or low ID during spontaneous speech, a sample of healthy adults was assessed using the functional resonance imaging (fMRI) technique; participants described pictures presented to them while in the scanner. Differential patterns of activation were observed for the low- and high-ID conditions, providing new insights into the processing correlates of ID.