Acoustic and Temporal Analysis of Speech for Schizophrenia Management

Abstract

Currently, there are no established objective biomarkers for diagnosing or monitoring schizophrenia. Studies have shown that there are noteworthy differences in the speech of schizophrenics. The primary goal of the current study is to examine possible acoustic differences in vowel production between Greek speakers with schizophrenia and healthy controls. Eleven Greek speakers with schizophrenia and twelve healthy controls participated in the study. The results showed significant differences between the two groups in F1 and F2 frequencies, in jitter and shimmer as well as in the total length of pauses in spontaneous speech. These can pave the way for future developments toward the detection of disease patterns using inexpensive and non-invasive methods.

Keywords

• schizophrenia
• speech
• acoustic features
• phonetic features
• pause
• jitter