Language Abnormalities in Alzheimer’s Disease Arise from Reduced Informativeness: A Cross-Linguistic Study in English and Persian

Abstract

INTRODUCTION:

This research investigates the psycholinguistic origins of language impairments in Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), questioning if these impairments result from language-specific structural disruptions or from a universal deficit in generating meaningful content.

METHODS:

Cross-linguistic analysis was conducted on language samples from 184 English and 52 Persian speakers, comprising both AD patients and healthy controls, to extract various language features. Furthermore, we introduced a machine learning-based metric, Language Informativeness Index (LII), to quantify informativeness.

RESULTS:

Indicators of AD in English were found to be highly predictive of AD in Persian, with a 92.3% classification accuracy. Additionally, we found robust correlations between the typical linguistic abnormalities of AD and language emptiness (low LII) across both languages.

DISCUSSION:

Findings suggest AD linguistics impairments are attributed to a core universal difficulty in generating informative messages. Our approach underscores the importance of incorporating biocultural diversity into research, fostering the development of inclusive diagnostic tools.