BibTeX

@inProceedings{lundholmfors-etal-2018-automated-263790,
	title        = {Automated Syntactic Analysis of Language Abilities in Persons with Mild and Subjective Cognitive Impairment},
	abstract     = {In this work we analyze the syntactic complexity of transcribed picture descriptions using a variety of automated syntactic features, and investigate the features’ predictive power in classifying narratives from people with subjective and mild cognitive impairment and healthy controls. Our results indicate that while there are no statistically significant differences, syntactic features can still be moderately successful at distinguishing the participant groups when used in a machine learning framework.},
	booktitle    = {Building continents of knowledge in oceans of data : the future of co-created eHealth: proceedings of MIE2018, 24-26 April 2018, Gothenburg, Sweden},
	editor       = {Adrien Ugon and Daniel Karlsson and Gunnar O. Klein and Anne Moen.},
	author       = {Lundholm Fors, Kristina and Fraser, Kathleen and Kokkinakis, Dimitrios},
	year         = {2018},
	publisher    = {IOS Press},
	address      = {Amsterdam},
	ISBN         = {978-1-61499-851-8},
}

@inProceedings{fraser-etal-2018-improving-264397,
	title        = {Improving the Sensitivity and Specificity of MCI Screening with Linguistic Information.},
	abstract     = {The Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE) is a screening tool for cognitive impairment. It has been extensively validated and is widely used, but has been criticized as not being effective in detecting mild cognitive impairment (MCI). In this study, we examine the utility of augmenting MMSE scores with automatically extracted linguistic information from a narrative speech task to better differentiate between individuals with MCI and healthy controls in a Swedish population. We find that with the addition of just four linguistic features, the F score (measuring a trade-off between sensitivity and specificity) is improved from 0.67 to 0.81 in logistic regression classification. These preliminary results suggest that the accuracy of traditional screening tools may be improved through the addition of computerized language analysis.},
	booktitle    = {Proceedings of the LREC workshop: Resources and ProcessIng of linguistic, para-linguistic and extra-linguistic Data from people with various forms of cognitive/psychiatric impairments (RaPID-2). 8th  of May 2018,  Miyazaki, Japan  / Dimitrios  Kokkinakis  (ed.)},
	author       = {Fraser, Kathleen and Lundholm Fors, Kristina and Eckerström, Marie and Themistocleous, Charalambos and Kokkinakis, Dimitrios},
	year         = {2018},
	ISBN         = {979-10-95546-26-9},
}

@inProceedings{themistocleous-etal-2018-effects-270215,
	title        = {Effects of Mild Cognitive Impairment on vowel duration
},
	abstract     = {Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a neurological condition, which is characterized
by a noticeable decline of cognitive abilities, including communicative and linguistic
skills. In this study, we have measured the duration of vowels produced in a reading
task by 55 speakers— 30 healthy controls and 25 MCI—. The main results showed
that MCI speakers differed significantly from HC in vowel duration as MCI speakers
produced overall longer vowels. Also, we found that gender effects on vowel duration
were different in MCI and HC. One significant aspect of this finding is that they highlight
the contribution of vowel acoustic features as markers of MCI.},
	booktitle    = {Proceedings of the 9th Tutorial & Research Workshop on Experimental Linguistics, 28 - 30 August 2018, Paris, France},
	editor       = {Antonis Botinis},
	author       = {Themistocleous, Charalambos and Kokkinakis, Dimitrios and Eckerström, Marie and Fraser, Kathleen and Lundholm Fors, Kristina},
	year         = {2018},
	ISBN         = {978-960-466-162-6 },
}

@inProceedings{lundholmfors-etal-2018-voice-264400,
	title        = {Eye-voice span in adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and healthy controls. },
	abstract     = {Objectives: This study is part of a larger project focused on developing new techniques for identification of early linguistic and extra-linguistic signs of cognitive impairment, with the overall goal of identifying dementia in the preclinical stage. In a previous study, we found that eye movements during reading can be used to distinguish between subjects with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and healthy controls with up to 86% accuracy. In this study, we are investigating the process of reading aloud, by exploring the eye-voice span in subjects with and without cognitive impairment. The aim of the study is to identify differences in the reading processes and evaluate whether these differences can be used to discriminate between the two groups.
Methods: The eye-voice span is a measurement of the temporal and spatial organization between the eye and the voice, and is affected by for example working memory and automaticity, but also by the familiarity and length of words. In previous work, differences between eye movements when reading in healthy controls and subjects with cognitive impairments have been identified, and it has been shown that subjects with Alzheimer’s disease show impairments when reading aloud, specifically with regards to speech and articulation rate.
Results: We present a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the reading process in the subjects, focusing both on general measures of eye-voice span, but also specifically on instances of hesitation and mistakes in the speech, and the correlated eye movements.
Conclusions/Take home message: Early detection of dementia is important for a number of reasons, such as giving the person access to interventions and medications, and allowing the individual and families time to prepare. By expanding the knowledge about reading processes in subjects with MCI, we are adding to the potential of using reading analysis as an avenue of detecting early signs of dementia.},
	booktitle    = {Book of Abstracts 10th CPLOL Congress 10-12 May 2018, Cascais, Portugal / editor :  Trinite, Baiba },
	author       = {Lundholm Fors, Kristina and Fraser, Kathleen and Kokkinakis, Dimitrios},
	year         = {2018},
}

@inProceedings{kokkinakis-etal-2018-swedish-262851,
	title        = {A Swedish Cookie-Theft Corpus},
	abstract     = {Language disturbances can be a diagnostic marker for neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, at earlier stages, and connected speech analysis provides a non-invasive and easy-to-assess measure for determining aspects of the severity of language impairment. In this paper we focus on the development of a corpus consisting of audio recordings of picture descriptions of the Cookie-theft, produced by Swedish speakers, and accompanying transcriptions. The speech elicitation procedure provides an established method of obtaining highly constrained samples of connected speech that can allow us to study the intricate interactions between various linguistic levels and cognition. We chose the Cookie-theft picture since it is a standardized test that has been used in various studies in the past, and therefore comparisons can be made based on previous results. This type of picture description task might be useful for detecting subtle language deficits in patients with subjective and mild cognitive impairment. The resulting corpus is a new, rich and multi-faceted resource for the investigation of linguistic characteristics of connected speech and a unique data set that provides a rich resource for (future) research and experimentation in many areas, and of language impairment in particular. The information in the corpus can also be combined and correlated with other collected data about the speakers, such as neuropsychological tests, imaging and brain physiology markers and cerebrospinal fluid markers.},
	booktitle    = {LREC 2018, 11th edition of the Language Resources and Evaluation Conference, 7-12 May 2018, Miyazaki (Japan) / Editors:  Nicoletta Calzolari (Conference chair), Khalid Choukri, Christopher Cieri, Thierry Declerck, Sara Goggi, Koiti Hasida, Hitoshi Isahara, Bente Maegaard, Joseph Mariani, Hélène Mazo, Asuncion Moreno, Jan Odijk, Stelios Piperidis, Takenobu Tokunaga},
	author       = {Kokkinakis, Dimitrios and Lundholm Fors, Kristina and Fraser, Kathleen and Nordlund, Arto},
	year         = {2018},
	publisher    = {European Language Resources Association},
	ISBN         = {979-10-95546-00-9},
}