Universidad de Salamanca, Department of Psychology, Spain.
Span J Psychol. 2012 Jul;15(2):487-94. doi: 10.5209/rev_sjop.2012.v15.n2.38859.
This study broaches in a novel way the analysis of cognitive impairment characteristic of the early stages of Alzheimer's Disease (AD). Specifically, we attempt to determine the acoustic speech parameters that are sensitive to the onset of the disease, and their association with the language deficit characteristic of AD. Speech analysis was carried out on 21 elderly patients with AD using Praat software, which analyzes the acoustic components of speech. The data obtained were subjected to stepwise regression, using the overall scores obtained in the test as the criterion variable, and the scores on the frequency, amplitude and periodicity variables as predictors of performance. We found that the percentage of voiceless segments explains a significant portion of the variance in the overall scores obtained in the neuropsychological test. This component seems to be related mainly to the patient's ability in phonological fluency. This finding could permit the creation of a diagnostic test for AD through analysis of the acoustic speech parameters at very low cost in terms of both time and resources.
本研究以新颖的方式探讨了阿尔茨海默病（AD）早期认知障碍的分析。具体来说，我们试图确定对疾病发作敏感的语音参数及其与 AD 语言缺陷的关联。使用 Praat 软件对 21 名患有 AD 的老年人进行了语音分析，该软件分析语音的声学成分。将获得的数据进行逐步回归分析，以测试中的总分作为因变量，以频率、幅度和周期性变量的分数作为性能预测因子。我们发现，无声段的百分比解释了神经心理测试中总分变化的很大一部分。该成分似乎主要与患者的语音流畅性能力有关。这一发现可以通过分析声学语音参数来创建一种诊断 AD 的测试，这种方法在时间和资源方面的成本都非常低。
