Validating Biobehavioral Technologies for Use in Clinical Psychiatry.

The last decade has witnessed the development of sophisticated biobehavioral and genetic, ambulatory, and other measures that promise unprecedented insight into psychiatric disorders. As yet, clinical sciences have struggled with implementing these objective measures and they have yet to move beyond "proof of concept." In part, this struggle reflects a traditional, and conceptually flawed, application of traditional psychometrics (i.

Frontal alpha asymmetry in schizotypy: electrophysiological evidence for motivational dysfunction.

Schizotypy is defined as personality traits reflecting an underlying risk for schizophrenia-spectrum disorders. As yet, there is a dearth of suitable objective markers for measuring schizotypy. Frontal alpha asymmetry, characterised by reduced left versus right frontal region activity, reflects trait-like diminished approach-related systems and has been found in schizophrenia.

Blunted vocal affect and expression is not associated with schizophrenia: A computerized acoustic analysis of speech under ambiguous conditions.

Introduction: Patients with schizophrenia are consistently rated by clinicians as having high levels of blunted vocal affect and alogia. However, objective technologies have often failed to substantiate these abnormalities. It could be the case that negative symptoms are context-dependent.

Cognitive functioning in schizotypy through the lens of the accessibility model.

Introduction: Individuals with schizotypy self-report subjective cognitive complaints commensurate with deficits reported by individuals with schizophrenia. In contrast to schizophrenia, objective deficits in memory are modest in individuals with schizotypy, as compared to their self-reported cognitive complaints. It has been proposed that abnormalities in semantic memory systems may underlie this dysjunction.

Vocal expression in schizophrenia: Less than meets the ear.

Abnormalities in nonverbal communication are a hallmark of schizophrenia. Results from studies using symptom rating scales suggest that these abnormalities are profound (i.e.

A temporal examination of co-activated emotion valence networks in schizophrenia and schizotypy.

Emotional abnormalities are prominent across the schizophrenia spectrum. To better define these abnormalities, we examined state emotional functions across opposing ends of the spectrum, notably in chronic outpatients with schizophrenia (Study 1) and college students with psychometrically defined schizotypy (Study 2). In line with existing studies, we predicted that individuals with schizophrenia would show unusually co-activated positive and negative emotions while college students with schizotypy would show abnormally low positive and abnormally high negative emotions.

A psychometric investigation of "macroscopic" speech measures for clinical and psychological science.

The analysis of vocal expression is a critical endeavor for psychological and clinical sciences and is an increasingly popular application for computer-human interfaces. Despite this, and despite advances in the efficiency, affordability, and sophistication of vocal analytic technologies, there is considerable variability across studies regarding what aspects of vocal expression are studied. Vocal signals can be quantified in a myriad of ways, and their underlying structure, at least with respect to "macroscopic" measures from extended speech, is presently unclear.

What do we really know about blunted vocal affect and alogia? A meta-analysis of objective assessments.

Deficits in nonverbal vocal expression (e.g., blunted vocal affect, alogia) are a hallmark of schizophrenia and are a focus of the Research Domain Criteria initiative from the National Institute of Mental Health.