Imagery rescripting versus cognitive restructuring for social anxiety: Treatment effects and working mechanisms

Background Negative mental images in social anxiety are often linked to memories of distressing social experiences. Imagery Rescripting (ImRs) has been found to be a promising intervention to target aversive memories, but mechanisms underlying ImRs are largely unknown. The present study aimed (a) to investigate the effects of ImRs compared to cognitive restructuring (CR) on social anxiety symptoms and (b) to extend previous research by examining whether ImRs works by fostering reappraisal of negative emotional self-beliefs. Method Highly socially anxious individuals (N = 77) were randomly allocated to ImRs, CR, or no intervention control (NIC). A speech task was performed at baseline and at 1-week follow-up. Results Only CR significantly reduced social anxiety symptoms from baseline to follow-up. Decreases in negative appraisals and emotional distress in response to the speech task did not differ between conditions. Regarding working mechanisms, ImRs led to stronger increases in positive emotions than CR and NIC. Both CR and ImRs yielded short-term reductions in emotionally anchored idiosyncratic self-beliefs, but CR was superior to ImRs at follow-up. Conclusions The present study provides evidence for the efficacy of a single-session of CR for social anxiety symptoms. As one specific version of ImRs was applied, it is conceivable that other or optimized versions of ImRs might be more effective.

The Assessment of Possible Cluttering in Japanese Adults Who Stutter: Analyzing the Ratio of Disfluencies

Purpose In this study, we investigated the classification of cluttering by assessing speech based on the ratio of disfluencies (RDF) and attempted to identify cluttering and cluttering–stuttering by classifying disfluencies according to previous studies and the Japanese Standardized Test for Stuttering. We further investigated the factors that contribute to the occurrence of disfluency by comparing the disfluencies of three tasks (spontaneous speech, oral reading, and retelling a memorized story) and examining the relationship between RDF and speech rate. Method The participants comprised 20 Japanese adults who stutter. Participants were required to perform an oral reading task, retelling a memorized story task, and a spontaneous speech task. We subsequently classified their disfluencies and calculated the RDF (normal disfluencies that are often observed in cluttering/stuttering-like disfluencies). Results About half of the participants met the cluttering criteria, that is, an RDF of above 3. Analyzing speech disfluencies revealed that a high RDF is associated with fewer stuttering-like disfluencies that increase the denominator of the RDF formula or many “interjections” that make its numerator smaller. Conclusions These tendencies of speech disfluencies could influence cluttering identification. We should further utilize the RDF considering the findings of this study.

Simple Wearable Device to Reduce Stress When Delivering a Speech without Pre-training

Objectives: There are many occasions in modern life when people must deliver presentations in front of audiences. Most people feel nervous before and while giving a speech. If there were a simple way to ease their stress, speakers would be able to perform better and their quality of life would improve. Consequently, this study aimed to alleviate the stress of speakers giving speeches by regulating breathing using a simple device.Methods: To achieve this goal, a popular device, the Apple Watch, was chosen. Twenty-eight participants were divided into two groups: the Breathe app group and the non-Breathe app group. The Breathe app group regulated their breathing using the Breathe app installed on an Apple Watch before speech preparation. The non-Breathe app group listened to an explanation of the experiment so that they could not undertake their own stress-easing strategies. Participants prepared speeches about themselves and delivered them in front of the researcher.Results: The Breathe app exercise eased stress during the exercise itself and the preparation phase of the speech task based on participants’ cardiac activity. However, stress was not alleviated during speech delivery.Conclusions: Based on the experimental setting and results of this study, together with the findings of previous studies, introducing pre-training sessions and performing stress-easing tasks before and/or during a speech, such as sending vibrations to participants’ wearable devices, might be an effective way to reduce stress when delivering speeches immediately after the breath-regulating task.

EXPRESS: Attention in Post-Lexical Processes of Utterance Production: Dual-Task Cost in Younger and Older Adults

There is a general agreement that speaking requires attention at least for conceptual and lexical processes of utterance production. However, conflicting results have been obtained with dual-task paradigms using either repetition tasks or more generally tasks involving limited loading of lexical selection. This study aimed to investigate whether post-lexical processes recruit attentional resources. We used a new dual-task paradigm in a set of experiments where a continuous verbal production task involved either high or low demand on lexical selection processes. Experiment 1 evaluates lexical and post-lexical processes with a semantic verbal fluency task, whereas experiments 2 and 3 focus on post-lexical processes with a non-propositional speech task. In each experiment, two types of non-verbal secondary tasks were used: processing speed (simple manual reaction times) or inhibition (Go/No-go). In Experiment 1, a dual-task cost was observed on the semantic verbal fluency task and each non-verbal task. In Experiment 2, a dual-task cost appeared on the non-verbal tasks but not on the speech task. The same paradigm was used with older adults (Experiment 3), as increased effort in post-lexical processes has been associated with ageing. For older adults, a dual-task cost was also observed on the non-propositional verbal task when speech was produced with the inhibition non-verbal task. The results suggest an attentional cost on post-lexical processes and strategic effects in the resolution of the dual-task.

Spatiotemporal Control of Articulation During Speech and Speechlike Tasks in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

Purpose This study examined the articulatory control of speech and speechlike tasks in individuals with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and neurologically healthy individuals with the aim to identify the most useful set of articulatory features and tasks for assessing bulbar motor involvement in ALS. Method Tongue and jaw kinematics were recorded in 12 individuals with bulbar ALS and 10 healthy controls during a speech task and two speechlike tasks (i.e., alternating motion rate [AMR], sequential motion rate [SMR]). Eight articulatory features were derived for each participant per task, including the range, maximum speed, and acceleration time of tongue and jaw movements as well as the coupling and timing between tongue and jaw movements. The effects of task (i.e., AMR, SMR, speech) and group (i.e., ALS, control) on these articulatory features were evaluated. For each feature, the task that yielded the largest difference between the ALS and control groups was identified. The diagnostic efficacy of these task-specific features was assessed using the receiver operating characteristic analysis; the relation of these task-specific features to a well-established bulbar severity index—speaking rate—was determined using Spearman's rank correlation. Results Seven task-specific articulatory features were identified, including (a) tongue and jaw acceleration time during the AMR task, (b) tongue–jaw coupling during the SMR task, and (c) range of tongue movement, maximum tongue and jaw speed, and temporal lag between tongue and jaw movements during the speech task. Among these features, tongue and jaw acceleration time and their temporal lag showed relatively high accuracy (i.e., 0.83–0.95) in differentiating individuals with ALS from healthy controls. Range of tongue movement and maximum tongue and jaw speed showed significant correlations with speaking rate. Conclusion Findings provided preliminary evidence for the utility of task-specific articulatory measurements as a novel quantitative assessment to detect and predict bulbar motor involvement in ALS.

Detecting Parkinson’s Disease from an Online Speech-task: Observational Study (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Access to neurological care—especially for Parkinson's disease (PD)—is a rare privilege for millions of people worldwide, especially in developing countries. In 2013, there were just 1200 neurologists in India for a population of 1.3 billion; the average population per neurologist exceeds 3.3 million in Africa. On the other hand, 60,000 people are diagnosed with Parkinson's disease (PD) every year in the US alone, and similar patterns of rising PD cases — fueled mostly by environmental pollution and an aging population can be seen worldwide. The current projection of more than 12 million PD patients worldwide by 2040 is only part of the picture since more than 20% of PD patients remain undiagnosed. Timely diagnosis and frequent assessment are keys to ensure timely and appropriate medical intervention, improving the quality of life for a PD patient. OBJECTIVE In this paper, we envision a web-based framework that can help anyone, anywhere around the world record a short speech task, and analyze the recorded data to screen for Parkinson’s disease (PD). METHODS We collected data from 726 unique participants (262 PD, 38% female; 464 non-PD, 65% female; average age: 61) – from all over the US and beyond. A small portion of the data (roughly 7%) was collected in a lab setting to compare quality. The participants were instructed to utter a popular pangram containing all the letters in the English alphabet “the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”. We extracted both standard acoustic features (Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC), jitter and shimmer variants) and deep learning-based features from the speech data. Using these features, we trained several machine learning algorithms. We also applied model interpretation techniques like SHAP (SHapley Additive exPlanations) to find out the importance of each feature in determining the model’s output. RESULTS We achieved 0.75 AUC (Area Under the Curve) performance on determining presence of self-reported Parkinson’s disease by modeling the standard acoustic features through the XGBoost – a gradient-boosted decision tree model. Further analysis reveals that the widely used MFCC features and a subset of previously validated dysphonia features designed for detecting Parkinson’s from verbal phonation task (pronouncing ‘ahh’) influence the model’s decision most. CONCLUSIONS Our model performed equally well on data collected in controlled lab environment as well as ‘in the wild’ across different gender and age groups. Using this tool, we can collect data from almost anyone anywhere with a video/audio enabled device, contributing to equity and access in neurological care.

Parental Marital Conflict and Growth in Adolescents’ Externalizing Problems: the Role of Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia

Previous studies have examined the moderating effect of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) on the association between marital conflict and externalizing problems, however the findings were inconsistent. One possible reason is that the covariation of internalizing problems in externalizing problems. Therefore, the present study aimed to examine this issue. Participants were 332 Chinese adolescents (54.5% boys) age from 13 to 15 years old. At T1, electrocardiogram monitoring was performed on adolescents during the resting state and stressor tasks (a speech task and a mental arithmetic task) to obtain RSA data. The Chinese version of the Achenbach Youth Self-Report-2001 (YSR-2001) and the Chinese version of the Children’s Perception of Interparental Conflict scale were used to assess adolescents’ externalizing and internalizing problems and their perception of marital conflict, respectively. Adolescents’ problem behaviors were assessed again in the second and third waves of data collection, with a 1-year lag among each wave. The results revealed that the 3- interactions of marital conflict × RSA reactivity in speech task × sex significantly predicted the trajectory of externalizing problems when controlling for internalizing problems from externalizing problems. Specifically, girls with greater RSA suppression to the speech task reported low and stable externalizing problems, however, boys with the same pattern were associated with slightly increased levels of externalizing problems. While, RSA augmentation to the speech task predicted the increase in externalizing problems among both girls and boys in high marital conflict families over time. However, this interaction effects were not significant when not partial out internalizing problems from externalizing problems. The findings highlight the importance of controlling for the covariation of internalizing problems when examining the interaction effects of person and environment on the development of adolescents’ externalizing problems.