• Sampling of natural speech for...

Treffer: Sampling of natural speech for the assessment of psychopathology: data collection procedure and inter-rater reliability.

Title:
Sampling of natural speech for the assessment of psychopathology: data collection procedure and inter-rater reliability.
Authors:
Dikaios K; Department of Psychiatry, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada; Nova Scotia Health, Halifax, NS, Canada; Department of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada. Electronic address: dikaiosk@mcmaster.ca., Rempel S; Nova Scotia Health, Halifax, NS, Canada. Electronic address: sheri.rempel@nshealth.ca., Dumpala SH; Faculty of Computer Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada. Electronic address: sriharsha.d@dal.ca., d'Eon J; Nova Scotia Health, Halifax, NS, Canada. Electronic address: jason.deon@nshealth.ca., Alda M; Department of Psychiatry, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada; Nova Scotia Health, Halifax, NS, Canada. Electronic address: malda@dal.ca., Kiefte M; School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada. Electronic address: michael.kiefte@dal.ca., Matwin S; Faculty of Computer Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada. Electronic address: stan@cs.dal.ca., Oore S; Faculty of Computer Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada; Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Toronto, ON, Canada. Electronic address: sageev@dal.ca., Uher R; Department of Psychiatry, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada; Nova Scotia Health, Halifax, NS, Canada. Electronic address: uher@dal.ca.
Source:
Psychiatry research [Psychiatry Res] 2026 Feb; Vol. 356, pp. 116895. Date of Electronic Publication: 2025 Dec 11.
Publication Type:
Journal Article
Language:
English
Journal Info:
Publisher: Elsevier/North-Holland Biomedical Press Country of Publication: Ireland NLM ID: 7911385 Publication Model: Print-Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1872-7123 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 01651781 NLM ISO Abbreviation: Psychiatry Res Subsets: MEDLINE
Imprint Name(s):
Publication: Limerick : Elsevier/North-Holland Biomedical Press
Original Publication: Amsterdam, Elsevier/North-Holland Biomedical Press.
MeSH Terms:
Mental Disorders*/diagnosis , Speech*/physiology , Data Collection*/methods, Humans ; Adult ; Male ; Female ; Reproducibility of Results ; Middle Aged ; Young Adult ; Observer Variation ; Emotions ; Adolescent
Contributed Indexing:
Keywords: Objective assessment; Psychopathology; Speech analysis; Speech collection
Entry Date(s):
Date Created: 20251225 Date Completed: 20260102 Latest Revision: 20260102
Update Code:
20260103
DOI:
10.1016/j.psychres.2025.116895
PMID:
41448102
Database:
MEDLINE

Weitere Informationen

Objectives: Recent research explores speech as a marker of psychiatric illness. Applications of speech analysis in clinical settings depend on reliable methods of speech data collection and processing, yet no standard exists thus far. We present a speech sampling and coding procedure developed to standardize methods across literature and facilitate assessment of psychiatric features through speech.
Methods: We developed a procedure to collect naturalistic speech samples from adults using emotionally-valenced prompting. Speech variables characterize features of illness that can aid in assessment of psychopathology. The samples are transcribed, segmented, and coded by human raters on variables indexing speaker, reference, emotions, and features of psychopathology.
Results: Samples from 200 adult participants were analyzed. The protocol elicited an average of 10 minutes of speech per assessment. Almost all participants provided 5 minutes or more of speech suitable for analysis. Human coders identified segment-level sentiment, reference, and emotions with high inter-rater reliability (ICC 0.60 to 0.79), but agreed less consistently on more complex features, such as worry and rumination (ICC 0.24 to 0.47).
Conclusion: We present a speech collection and processing method that elicits speech samples from participants with a range of psychopathology, suitable for manual and computerized analysis with applications to clinical settings.
(Copyright © 2025. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Rudolf Uher reports financial support was provided by Canadian Institutes of Health Research. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.