Analysis of Narrative Discourse Structure as an Ecologically Relevant Measure of Executive Function in Adults

Abstract

This study examined the narrative discourse production and executive function (EF) abilities of 46 neuro-typical adults (18-98 years old). Two questions were addressed: Is the analysis of narrative structure sensitive to changes associated with aging? & What is the relationship between measures of narrative structure and EF? Narratives were elicited under two conditions and narrative structure was analyzed for the presence of organizing story grammar elements. Narrative structure was significantly correlated with age as well as linguistic and non-linguistic measures of EF. Factor analysis of story structure and EF variables yielded two factors reflecting constructs of output-fluidity and organizational-efficiency. These data suggest that narrative structure and EF represent aspects of goal-directed knowledge that are not bound by a traditional linguistic and non-linguistic division. Thus, narrative structure may represent a global and ecologically valid measure of goal-directed executive function knowledge that is also sensitive to changes associated with typical aging.

Do age-related word retrieval difficulties appear (or disappear) in connected speech?

“…Aging presumably affects word retrieval not only in isolation but also in context (e.g., Mortensen, Meyer, & Humphreys, 2006). However, most research on connected speech production in healthy aging has addressed aspects of communication such as discourse structure (e.g., Cannizzaro & Coelho, 2013), off-topic speech (e.g., Arbuckle & Gold, 1993; Arbuckle, Nohara-LeClaire, & Pushkar, 2000; Pushkar, Basevitz, Arbuckle, Nohara-LeClaire, Lapidus, & Peled, 2000; Pushkar-Gold & Arbuckle, 1995), or information content (e.g., Wright, Capilouto, Srinivasan, & Fergadiotis, 2011), and did not focus specifically on word retrieval.…”

Does Brain Volume Loss Predict Cognitive and Narrative Discourse Performance Following Traumatic Brain Injury?

“…Studies of narrative discourse ability in healthy aging populations have found that performance on global (i.e., macro-level) measures is correlated with age and performance on a number of cognitive tasks. Cannizzaro and Coelho (2012) found that the proportion of T-units in episode structure, a measure of narrative organization (i.e., story grammar) that has demonstrated sensitivity to TBI (Coelho, 2002;, decreased with age and was associated with both linguistic and nonlinguistic measures of EF, such as verbal fluency and design fluency. In Wright and colleagues' study (2011), younger and older adults did not differ in the proportion of story propositions produced.…”

“…Cognitive processes and domains, such as working memory (WM), declarative memory, executive functions (EF), and general intelligence have been shown to correlate with or predict narrative ability at multiple levels of analysis (e.g., Cannizzaro & Coelho, 2012;Chapman et al, 2006;Coelho et al, 2013;Kurczek & Duff, 2011;Wright, Capilouto, Srinivasan, & Fergadiotis, 2011). Studies of narrative discourse ability in healthy aging populations have found that performance on global (i.e., macro-level) measures is correlated with age and performance on a number of cognitive tasks.…”

Análise de aspectos micro e macrolinguísticos da narrativa de indivíduos com doença de Alzheimer, comprometimento cognitivo leve e sem comprometimentos cognitivos

“…Uma grande variedade de discursos e medidas tem sido pesquisada, interesse esse influenciado pelo reconhecimento de que o discurso é uma forma natural de comunicação e pode fornecer informações importantes sobre a integração de habilidades linguístico-cognitivas, como nomeação, e também sobre habilidades de seleção, organização e planejamento (Andreetta et al, 2012;Wills et al, 2012;Cannizzaro, Coelho, 2013).…”

“…A utilização de figuras para eliciar o discurso tem sido considerada uma maneira eficiente de se obter amostras de discurso padronizadas entre diversos indivíduos (Giles et al, 1996;March et al, 2006;Cannizzaro, Coelho, 2013). O uso de figuras é uma ferramenta bastante válida para eliciar amostras de fala encadeada, que se aproximam da conversação natural (Duong et al, 2003).…”