Mahon Elizabeth, Lachman Margie E
Psychology Department of Psychology, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, United States.
Front Psychol. 2024 Oct 18;15:1422376. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1422376. eCollection 2024.
Prosody voice measures, especially jitter and shimmer, have been associated with cognitive impairment and hold potential as early indicators of risk for cognitive decline. Prior research suggests that voice measures assessed concurrently with longitudinal cognitive outcomes are associated with 10-year cognitive declines in middle-age and older adults from Midlife in the U.S. (MIDUS) study.
Using a subsample from the same study, we expanded previous research to examine voice measures that were (1) collected 8 years before cognitive outcomes, (2) derived from narrative speech in logical memory tests instead of word list recall tests, and (3) independent of the cognitive outcomes. Multilevel analyses controlled for covariates of age, sex, education, neurological conditions, depressive symptoms, and chronic conditions. The results indicated that higher jitter and lower shimmer predicted greater 10-year declines in episodic memory and working memory.
These findings extend previous research by highlighting prosody voice measures assessed 8 years earlier as predictors of subsequent cognitive declines over a decade.
韵律语音指标，尤其是抖动和闪烁，与认知障碍有关，并且有可能作为认知衰退风险的早期指标。先前的研究表明，在美国中年及老年成人的“美国中年（MIDUS）”研究中，与纵向认知结果同时评估的语音指标与10年的认知衰退有关。
我们使用同一研究的一个子样本，扩展了先前的研究，以检验以下语音指标：（1）在认知结果出现前8年收集；（2）源自逻辑记忆测试中的叙述性言语而非单词列表回忆测试；（3）独立于认知结果。多水平分析对年龄、性别、教育程度、神经疾病、抑郁症状和慢性病等协变量进行了控制。结果表明，较高的抖动和较低的闪烁预示着情景记忆和工作记忆在10年内有更大的衰退。
这些发现扩展了先前的研究，强调了提前8年评估的韵律语音指标可作为随后十年认知衰退的预测指标。
