Speech and Language Characteristics of Neurologically Healthy Adults When Describing the Modern Cookie Theft Picture: Mixing the New With the Old

Abstract

Purpose: The Modern Cookie Theft picture has recently become available. This study's purpose was to compare (a) speech and language production by neurologically healthy adults (NHAs) given a generic instruction to describe the picture versus instruction to describe it as if talking with someone who was blind and (b) production during the first 90 s versus full samples. Method: One hundred NHAs minus five outliers formed two participant groups. Each group heard either the original or modified task instruction. Transcriptions of resulting descriptions were analyzed regarding duration, word and T-unit productivity, content units (CUs), and main concepts (MCs) both in full and 90-s samples. Identified CUs and MCs were compared with existing lists from previous research. Results: Significantly longer samples and greater verbosity occurred with the modified versus original instruction even when limiting time to a 90 s maximum. With the modified instruction, CUs included 119 and 138 terms for truncated and full samples, respectively; participants mentioned 98 and 104 CUs, respectively, given the original instruction. MCs expressed were 18 and 19 for truncated and full samples, respectively, given the modified instruction; with the original instruction, this dropped to 11 and 12 MCs for truncated and full samples, respectively. Within samples, CU and MC repetitions were greater given modified rather than original instruction. Conclusions: Normative productivity and content generation data are critical for guiding diagnostic efforts and treatment planning. Benefits and detriments associated with differing productivity and content redundancy secondary to varying instructions and analysis time frames are discussed.