Meulemans Catherine, Leijten Mariëlle, Van Waes Luuk, Engelborghs Sebastiaan, De Maeyer Sven
Research Foundation - Flanders, Brussels, Belgium.
Department of Management, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium.
Front Psychol. 2022 Jul 11;13:872280. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.872280. eCollection 2022.
In this article, we explore if the observation of writing behavior can assist in the screening and follow-up of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and mild dementia due to Alzheimer's disease (AD). To this end, we examined the extent to which overall writing process measures and pausing behavior during writing differed between 15 cognitively impaired patients and 15 age- and gender-matched healthy controls. Participants completed two typed picture description tasks that were registered with Inputlog, a keystroke logging program that captures keyboard activity during text production. The following variables were analyzed with mixed-effects models: time on task; number of characters, pauses and Pause-bursts per minute; proportion of pause time; duration of Pause-bursts; and pause time between words. For pause time between words, also the effect of pauses preceding specific word categories was analyzed. Results showed a main effect of group on all variables. In addition, for pause time between words a main effect of part-of-speech was found as well. Results indicate that writing process analysis can possibly serve as a supplementary tool for the screening and follow-up of AD.
在本文中，我们探讨书写行为观察是否有助于筛查和随访轻度认知障碍（MCI）以及由阿尔茨海默病（AD）引起的轻度痴呆。为此，我们研究了15名认知障碍患者与15名年龄和性别匹配的健康对照者在整体书写过程指标和书写时的停顿行为方面的差异程度。参与者完成了两项打字图片描述任务，这些任务由Inputlog记录，Inputlog是一个按键记录程序，可在文本生成过程中捕捉键盘活动。使用混合效应模型分析了以下变量：任务时间；每分钟字符数、停顿次数和停顿爆发次数；停顿时间比例；停顿爆发持续时间；以及单词间停顿时间。对于单词间停顿时间，还分析了特定词性前停顿的影响。结果显示，两组在所有变量上均存在主效应。此外，对于单词间停顿时间，还发现了词性的主效应。结果表明，书写过程分析可能作为AD筛查和随访的补充工具。
