Vocal Cues as Indices of Schizophrenia

Abstract

The hypothesis that schizophrenic patients can be differentiated from non-schizo-phrenic patients was tested. In addition, the impressions about personality characteristics conveyed by voice quality were explored. Ten schizophrenics and ten non-schizophrenic patients, all from a State hospital, were recorded individually as they read the same passage. Five judges listened to randomized recordings and completed a questionnaire on each speaker to indicate whether the subject was schizophrenic, to rate the degree of the subject's psychopathology, to rate vocal behavior with a Voice Characteristics Scale made up of six adjectives, and to rate vocal indices of personality disorder with a Voice Psychopathology Scale made up of 26 adjectives describing pathological personality characteristics. The schizophrenics were distinguished from non-schizophrenics on the basis of voice quality. The schizophrenic patients were seen as more inefficient, despondent, and moody. Information conveyed by speakers' voices was explored by a factor analytic technique. Four factors, general disintegration, dysphoria, social distance, and agitation, were identified.