What Makes People Better at Describing Photographs?

Conditions

Healthy Aging

Keywords

speech production, cognitive aging

Brief summary

This study is being conducted to learn more about how various personal and situational characteristics are related to the ability to provide verbal descriptions of photographs. Participants will perform a brief mental exercise, then see three photographs with instructions to describe each thoroughly. Participants will also complete several other surveys and measures. Collected data will give researchers a better understanding of how different variables relate to speech production.

Detailed description

This study is being conducted to learn more about how various personal and situational characteristics are related to the the ability to provide verbal descriptions of photographs. Adult participants ages 18-30 and 65-80 will participate in videoconference calls during which they perform a brief mental exercise, then see three photographs with instructions to describe each thoroughly. Descriptions are to be 30 to 60 seconds in length and are audio recorded for later scoring. Participants will also complete several other surveys and measures, including some about anxiety, mindfulness, vocabulary, and demographics. Participation will take approximately 40 to 60 minutes. Collected data will be de-identified, and the aggregate data will give researchers a better understanding of how individuals' personality and cognitive traits and the mental exercise performed before the study relate to peoples' speech production performance.

Related papers

No related papers found yet.

Interventions

BEHAVIORALMental Exercise

Participants perform a 10 minute mental exercise that is either mindful breathing or listening to a story

Study design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Intervention model

PARALLEL

Primary purpose

BASIC_SCIENCE

Masking

SINGLE (Subject)

Masking description

Participants in each condition do not know what other participants are doing, nor that there is another condition.

Intervention model description

Participants are randomly assigned to one of two conditions before performing a picture description task from which we measure speech fluency in several ways

Eligibility

Sex/Gender

ALL

Age

18 Years to 80 Years

Healthy volunteers

No

Inclusion criteria

* fluent speakers of English * ages 18-30 or ages 65-80

Exclusion criteria

* non-fluent speakers of English * people who are not ages 18-30 or ages 65-80

Design outcomes

Primary

Measure	Time frame	Description
Repetitions	During the 40 to 60 minute experimental session	Average number of repetitions as a percentage of words spoken
Speech Rate	During the 40 to 60 minute experimental session	Average number of words per second spoken
Speech Fillers Mid-Phrase	During the 40 to 60 minute experimental session	Average number of mid-phrase speech fillers as a percentage of words spoken
Speech Fillers Other	During the 40 to 60 minute experimental session	Average number of speech fillers not in the middle of a phrase as a percentage of words spoken
Repairs Plus False Starts	During the 40 to 60 minute experimental session	Average number of repairs plus false starts as a percentage of words spoken. These two measures reflect the same underlying process so are summed together; indeed, one or the other term is sometimes used to indicate both measures.

Countries

United States

Participant flow

Recruitment details

Young adult participants were recruited via an online posting system (Sona) operated within the UCCS Psychology department. Older adult participants were recruiting via calls and emails to community members who have signed up as interested in participating via a UCCS website.

Participants by arm

Arm	Count
Mindful Breathing Condition Participants follow instructions on a 10-min audio clip Participants perform a 10 minute mindful breathing exercise	90
Control Condition Participants follow instructions on a 10-min audio clip Participants listen to 10 minutes of a story	92
Total	182

Baseline characteristics

Characteristic	Mindful Breathing Condition	Control Condition	Total
Age, Categorical <=18 years	0 Participants	0 Participants	0 Participants
Age, Categorical >=65 years	44 Participants	45 Participants	89 Participants
Age, Categorical Between 18 and 65 years	46 Participants	47 Participants	93 Participants
Ethnicity (NIH/OMB) Hispanic or Latino	15 Participants	9 Participants	24 Participants
Ethnicity (NIH/OMB) Not Hispanic or Latino	68 Participants	83 Participants	151 Participants
Ethnicity (NIH/OMB) Unknown or Not Reported	7 Participants	0 Participants	7 Participants
Race (NIH/OMB) American Indian or Alaska Native	0 Participants	1 Participants	1 Participants
Race (NIH/OMB) Asian	3 Participants	4 Participants	7 Participants
Race (NIH/OMB) Black or African American	10 Participants	3 Participants	13 Participants
Race (NIH/OMB) More than one race	7 Participants	5 Participants	12 Participants
Race (NIH/OMB) Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander	0 Participants	1 Participants	1 Participants
Race (NIH/OMB) Unknown or Not Reported	1 Participants	0 Participants	1 Participants
Race (NIH/OMB) White	69 Participants	78 Participants	147 Participants
Sex: Female, Male Female	66 Participants	63 Participants	129 Participants
Sex: Female, Male Male	24 Participants	29 Participants	53 Participants

Adverse events

Event type	EG000 affected / at risk	EG001 affected / at risk
deaths Total, all-cause mortality	0 / 90	0 / 92
other Total, other adverse events	0 / 90	0 / 92
serious Total, serious adverse events	0 / 90	0 / 92

Outcome results

Primary

Repairs Plus False Starts

Average number of repairs plus false starts as a percentage of words spoken. These two measures reflect the same underlying process so are summed together; indeed, one or the other term is sometimes used to indicate both measures.