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Voice pitch measurements in schizophrenia and depression

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

Julian Leff  and
Evelyn Abberton
Julian Leff*
Affiliation:
MRC Social Psychiatry Unit, Institute of Psychiatry, London; and Department of Phonetics and Linguistics, University College London
Evelyn Abberton
Affiliation:
MRC Social Psychiatry Unit, Institute of Psychiatry, London; and Department of Phonetics and Linguistics, University College London
*
1 Address for correspondence: Dr J. P. Leff, Assistant Director, MRC Social Psychiatry Unit, Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, Denmark Hill, London SE5 8AF.
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Synopsis

A monotonous voice is produced by schizophrenic patients whose expression of emotion is damped down and by patients with a severe degree of depression. Clinically, the distinction between these two diagnostic entities is virtually impossible to establish auditorily on the basis of voice quality alone. The laryngograph has been developed recently to record laryngeal activity. It was used to study voice pitch in a series of emotionally blunted and non-blunted schizophrenics, and retarded and non-retarded depressives. The frequency distributions of the laryngographic recordings were analysed to yield kurtosis scores. The group of retarded depressives had a significantly higher kurtosis score than the group of blunted schizophrenics. Hence this technique allows an objective distinction to be made between two kinds of monotonous voice produced by psychiatric patients. Furthermore, blunted schizophrenics had a higher mean kurtosis score than non-blunted schizophrenics, indicating that this measure can also be used as an objective index of blunting of affect in schizophrenia.

Type
Preliminary Communication
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 11 , Issue 4 , November 1981 , pp. 849 - 852
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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References

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