tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21605329.post6283119004927853198..comments2024-03-29T05:19:17.638-07:00Comments on The Neurocritic: Using Discourse Analysis to Assess Cognitive DeclineThe Neurocritichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08010555869208208621noreply@blogger.comBlogger40125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21605329.post-62803910201684224792018-12-02T19:13:18.995-08:002018-12-02T19:13:18.995-08:00Thanks for the tip, Marc! I'll look at your pa...Thanks for the tip, Marc! I'll look at your paper.The Neurocritichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08010555869208208621noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21605329.post-13576239350520460542018-12-02T17:44:26.480-08:002018-12-02T17:44:26.480-08:00I realize this is an old post now, but for anyone ...I realize this is an old post now, but for anyone who is curious, we just published an analysis of the President's linguistic features (fillers/non-specific nouns and unique word counts) in the same manner as Berisha et al.'s 2015 analysis of Presidents Bush and Reagan. We examined 7 years of unscripted speech in responses to interviews over 7 years (all Fox News):<br /><br />Coutanche, M.N. and Paulus, J.P. (2018). An empirical analysis of popular press claims regarding linguistic change in President Donald J. Trump. Frontiers in Psychology, 9.<br /><br />https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02311/full<br /><br />The article is open access so anyone can see it, but the short summary is that filler-use has significantly increased over time (like Reagan, but not Bush) and unique word count has not changed (like Bush, but not Reagan). The increasing filler-word use was apparent before his 2016 candidacy was announcing, suggesting that campaign/office related factors are not the cause. I hope everyone finds it interesting!Marcnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21605329.post-67408816581740201822017-12-07T19:41:51.791-08:002017-12-07T19:41:51.791-08:00I read an article suggesting Trump has symptoms or...I read an article suggesting Trump has symptoms or neurosyphillis. Any thoughts?Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06570916484739545710noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21605329.post-53320238781146653212017-12-04T02:06:28.394-08:002017-12-04T02:06:28.394-08:00My mother was sharp; father was a regular columnis...My mother was sharp; father was a regular columnist for the county paper. My sister and I recognize the dimentia 15 years prior our men's acknowledgement.<br /><br />Fortunately for them, there were no real medical advancements available at that time. <br /><br />I believe men may ignore, more than females, signs of stress. There are facial and visual cues, signals of distress you pick up. These folks can seemingly do pretty well for a while, they'll have moments of complete clarity. This is clarity is intermittent and the clarity could be terrifying.<br /><br />Both Mother and Trump prefer the night. Yes, I think the Dimentia is real.<br /><br />Lisa Longnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21605329.post-86328438617859185112017-12-03T11:37:25.528-08:002017-12-03T11:37:25.528-08:00Trump's tax cut agenda is a serious business a...Trump's tax cut agenda is a serious business and must be understood properly. http://real-politique.blogspot.co.uk/Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21605329.post-34871761241779299242017-10-14T16:03:37.271-07:002017-10-14T16:03:37.271-07:00Informative post--I've collected some related ...Informative post--I've collected some related material here:<br />http://milesfinn.com/wordpress/?page_id=393<br /><br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03200016245504082727noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21605329.post-38557537918662560632017-08-27T01:18:30.411-07:002017-08-27T01:18:30.411-07:00A person I know suffers from dementia caused by at...A person I know suffers from dementia caused by atypical multiple sclerosis. He also has difficulty with ramps.Andrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12048930132710403177noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21605329.post-40422086920430121622017-08-26T11:19:27.455-07:002017-08-26T11:19:27.455-07:00My professional experience as a mental health prof...My professional experience as a mental health professional for over 30 years is that MDs, with the possible exception of Psychiatrists, are focused almost entirely on physical symptoms. Additionally, when the personal physician has a long-term relationship with a patient, I believe they can become even less objective in diagnosing mental problems. I also believe that they frequently miss early symptoms of mental disorders, until those symptoms become more pronounced. It takes quite an extensive interview to diagnose Dementia, as well as substantial testing. That being said, I think there is much cause for concern about President Trump's mental condition. Carolhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16978741781186647682noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21605329.post-38790284185534718912017-08-26T11:09:42.799-07:002017-08-26T11:09:42.799-07:00It seems normal that stress would exacerbate the p...It seems normal that stress would exacerbate the problematic speech and thought patterns in someone with early stages of Dementia. This could explain why "friendly" conversations would not appear to be abnormal.Carolhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16978741781186647682noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21605329.post-73760647841986644642017-08-24T02:17:23.642-07:002017-08-24T02:17:23.642-07:00Hi guys,
I was pretty taken by this idea until I ...Hi guys,<br /><br />I was pretty taken by this idea until I saw the fits in the graphs above. I'm sorry but to me the fit in all the graphs isn't too convincing. The data points are all over the place. Using it as evidence to predict Reagan's decline - to me - feels like fitting the data to an outcome you already know to be true.<br /><br />Also, based on what you are doing, in my opinion, the x-axis of these plots should be time, not ordinal number of the speech. That could make a big difference, since the time frames are significantly different (4 years vs. 8 years).<br /><br />In short, based on what is presented here I'm not (yet) convinced of the premise that this form of speech analysis can predict neural degeneration with statistical significance.<br /><br />Daniel.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01485788692902116575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21605329.post-58466699446222345582017-08-23T17:00:31.151-07:002017-08-23T17:00:31.151-07:00The most critical question to answer regarding Tru...The most critical question to answer regarding Trump's cognitive impairment using discourse analysis is the slope of the change and whether it has been relentlessly downward. Once the answers to these questions are known and the data are displayed graphically it becomes much less feasible to argue the validity of what is happening by contesting the specifics. One look at the graphic data for Ronald Reagan tells the tale. <br /><br />Additionally, once the rate of decline is established over a long baseline it becomes possible to make predictions regarding the future time course of Mr. Trump's cognitive deterioration and even to speculate about what the nature and severity of future problems is likely to be. At this point that is what should we really care about most.<br /><br />I would also point out that even very smnall changes in walking speed, 0.1 seconds more per year, were 47 percent more likely to predict subsequent cognitive decline (1). Because Mr. Trump has been a public person for so long it may be possible to do sophisticated gait analysis on the large archive of video footage that exists of him. Perhaps more to the point, Mr. Trump has exhibited such obvious signs of neurocognitive impairment that it should be easily possible to determine if he has one of the more common age-associated dementias. Early, noninvasive and highly accurate diagnosis of Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer's Disease are now a reality: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352872917300246 <br /><br />What is not a reality is the presence of infrastructure that mandates the application of such objective tests (and others) to determine the fitness of a U.S. President to serve once there is evidence of cognitive decline. Perhaps in the future the need for such infrastructure will become more apparent and it will be implemented.<br /><br />1: Rosso AL, Verghese J, Metti AL, Boudreau RM, Aizenstein HJ, Kritchevsky S,<br />Harris T, Yaffe K, Satterfield S, Studenski S, Rosano C. Slowing gait and risk<br />for cognitive impairment: The hippocampus as a shared neural substrate.<br />Neurology. 2017 Jul 25;89(4):336-342. doi: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000004153. Epub<br />2017 Jun 28. PubMed PMID: 28659421. Mike Darwinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21605329.post-6268557061613009462017-07-12T17:57:52.837-07:002017-07-12T17:57:52.837-07:00For what it's worth, I have ADHD and people ha...For what it's worth, I have ADHD and people have said I am very articulate. Of course, anecdotal evidence of one person does not a conclusion make.kaiserhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06584055039517301848noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21605329.post-7815735935759162442017-07-07T15:21:25.461-07:002017-07-07T15:21:25.461-07:00I know a few men with Lewy Body Dementia, and I wo...I know a few men with Lewy Body Dementia, and I wonder if that's what Trump might suffer from, especially his needing to hold someone's hand while walking down a ramp (or stairs?), his paranoia, and possibly his insistence on the crowds at his inauguration could have been a visual hallucination. Also he seems to have insomnia (since he tweets so early in the morning), which is another common symptom.<br /><br />On the other hand, and even if he has dementia, he has had the grandiosity and lack of empathy all his life...<br /> Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21605329.post-50703616738363127542017-07-06T09:31:38.459-07:002017-07-06T09:31:38.459-07:00Unknown - I can see your point here...Unknown - I can see your point here...The Neurocritichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08010555869208208621noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21605329.post-74755917852700586372017-07-05T21:09:43.297-07:002017-07-05T21:09:43.297-07:00Although I admire Dr. Frances, I am FIRMLY on the ...Although I admire Dr. Frances, I am FIRMLY on the other side of this thing. I have NEVER had a narcissistic patient who was distressed by their NPD. They cause a lot of distress in others. I would say that if Dr. Frances requires distress of the subject for his diagnostic criteria, look at the distress Trump feels when he is criticized. His lashing out can be seen as evidence of distress that is due to his NPD. Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09997865043711408206noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21605329.post-83784848761435826422017-07-02T05:10:11.982-07:002017-07-02T05:10:11.982-07:00I couldn't agree more. The idea that people wi...I couldn't agree more. The idea that people with NPD suffer from the disorder is flat wrong. That is why personality disorders are impossible to treat: the afflicted sees nothing wrong with their behavior and has no desire to change. <br /><br />I don't think anyone beyond partisan hacks could, at this point, believe that Donald Trump is mentally well. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01629585158492349356noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21605329.post-74884812728785743032017-05-24T05:57:03.522-07:002017-05-24T05:57:03.522-07:00Would any of his doctors, if they knew, have a res...Would any of his doctors, if they knew, have a responsibllity or even the power to deem him unfit to serve as Pres? Just curious on the role his person physian could have in diagnosising and treating any possible mental illness.Hotdoghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09571639060606163893noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21605329.post-57026253514964169942017-05-23T19:12:00.345-07:002017-05-23T19:12:00.345-07:00Wow.Wow.ITBChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02174759126453564790noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21605329.post-17552914144521141802017-05-23T16:21:46.256-07:002017-05-23T16:21:46.256-07:00Thanks for the link to that article, which origina...Thanks for the link to that article, which originally appeared in STAT: <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2017/05/23/donald-trump-speaking-style-interviews/" rel="nofollow">Trump wasn’t always so linguistically challenged. What could explain the change?</a>. <br /><br />Totally agree that stress (and sleep deprivation) can play a role too.The Neurocritichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08010555869208208621noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21605329.post-90156383173418091862017-05-23T10:47:05.148-07:002017-05-23T10:47:05.148-07:00Anonymous of May 16, 2017 1:32 PM here. Thanks fo...Anonymous of May 16, 2017 1:32 PM here. Thanks for your response. I agree quantitative analyses are needed. Also, it appears our speech is affected by multiple factors, stress being one.<br /><br />Today's article in Raw Story addresses your topic:<br /><br />The change in linguistic facility could be strategic; maybe Trump thinks his supporters like to hear him speak simply and with more passion than proper syntax.<br /><br />"He may be using it as a strategy to appeal to certain types of people," said Michaelis. <br /><br />But linguistic decline is also obvious in two interviews with David Letterman, in 1988 and 2013, presumably with much the same kind of audience. In the first, Trump threw around words such as aesthetically and precarious, and used long, complex sentences. <br /><br />In the second, he used simpler speech patterns, few polysyllabic words, and noticeably more fillers such as uh and I mean.<br /><br />http://www.rawstory.com/2017/05/experts-say-trumps-speech-deterioration-is-a-clear-sign-of-early-dementia/ <br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21605329.post-10560585377072604702017-05-18T22:17:36.488-07:002017-05-18T22:17:36.488-07:00Except this study/page about NPD
http://www.halcyo...Except this study/page about NPD<br />http://www.halcyon.com/jmashmun/npd/dsm-iv.html<br />clearly states that someone with NPD does NOT show empathy, and the majority are NOT dismayed at all by what they do to others. It is considered by their victims to be one of the hallmarks of their behaviors. If they even notice, they don't care that they hurt you, it's your fault, obviously. So this ONE doctor saying he isn't NPD because he doesn't display empathy or "distress" about is full of BS. And if the man IS mentally ill, why should it belittle others who are also mentally ill? That's silly. I'm Bipolar, and saying he is NPD doesn't bother me, because it's either that or he's an outright psychopath. I grew up with both, I know what they look like and sound like and act like. He is smack on the spectrum.Brandyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16030144097656677108noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21605329.post-63029048645344691882017-05-18T19:48:49.592-07:002017-05-18T19:48:49.592-07:00Anonymous of May 16, 2017 1:32 PM -- It looks like...Anonymous of May 16, 2017 1:32 PM -- It looks like quite a few of the videos have been taken down. Here's another version of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPxmrXPycVg" rel="nofollow">January 8th 2015 interview</a>. He doesn't seem that bad, but I noticed a lot of repetitions. Here's his response to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Hebdo_shooting" rel="nofollow"><i>Charlie Hebdo</i> shooting</a> the day before (which was never referred to as such):<br /><br />"...you look through thousands of years of history, you’ve always had people, and you’ve always had whether it’s crazy people or people with as you say a point of view. But this is.. uh, a this was a terrible thing. A lot of people killed and for no reason whatsoever. And it’s a tough, it’s a tough deal. I will say this. The uh magazine uh they’ve had a lot of problems over the years. And they were really you know we know about uh, we know about people that are very tough, and they were very tough on a lot of different people. But who would ever think who would ever think this would happen."<br /><br />Branching out from Letterman to other late night talk shows, Trump sounds more fluent (and funny) in friendly situations (e.g. with Jimmy Fallon) on topics he's comfortable with (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vARcHv-nZ-c" rel="nofollow">Donald Trump on Board Games, His Health and Fast Food Habit</a>) vs. ones that are more difficult (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFS5CSP5fRM" rel="nofollow">Donald Trump Clarifies His Relationship with Vladimir Putin</a>).<br /><br />But overall, complete transcripts of these shows, as many as possible, are needed. Then a quantitative analysis of word usage would be necessary.The Neurocritichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08010555869208208621noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21605329.post-49536647558017306072017-05-16T13:32:06.822-07:002017-05-16T13:32:06.822-07:00Thanks for the article.
Are people noticing signi...Thanks for the article.<br /><br />Are people noticing significant differences in Trump's speech patterns between his 1988 and 2013 appearances on Letterman? (The 2015 interview doesn't appear to be available.)<br /><br />I watched each only once. Also, I'm a lay person but nothing stood out to me. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21605329.post-85055909611203086362017-05-16T01:08:01.118-07:002017-05-16T01:08:01.118-07:00I notice there are no pro-Trump comments in this s...I notice there are no pro-Trump comments in this section.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21605329.post-40187804606261204202017-05-16T01:05:38.753-07:002017-05-16T01:05:38.753-07:00Every news organisation that re-posts this lie is ...Every news organisation that re-posts this lie is working for the deep state. <br /><br />This is how you will know the media that reports the truth from the media who work for the dark side, the ones who post this lie. They are traitors and all in Washinton that try to use this as a basis to get rid of the President, will be committing treason. <br /><br />Also be aware that there are witches....yes, actual witches casting spells on the President in an attempt to get him out of the Oval Office. Search the mainstream news and you will see.<br /><br />America, you are in the final time of grace. If Trump goes, followers of hell will no longer hide their dirty deeds. They will parade their evil in the light and you will be without excuse.<br /><br />R.I.P. Seth RichAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com