Prosodic cues to psychosis risk

Schizophrenia is known to impact prosody, often described as “flat affect.” Individuals with schizophrenia show reduced F0 variability relative to neurotypical individuals (Rapcan et al. 2010). However, the speech of adolescents at high risk for psychosis in the prodromal (pre-diagnosis) stage has not been investigated, leaving open the question of whether speech prosody might be an early signal of symptoms associated with psychotic disorders. To investigate this issue, the speech of 18 ultra high-risk (UHR) youth (ages 16-21) was compared to 18 age- and gender-matched controls. F0 (pre-processed for smoothing and error correction) was extracted from 10-minute segments of speech recorded during clinical interviews. Using LDA classification, F0 summary statistics (mean and variability) separated male UHR and control speakers (69% accuracy) but not female speakers (42% accuracy), consistent with gender differences in psychosis onset during adolescence (Ochoa et al., 2012). Linear models of symptoms measured...