Linguistic markers of psychosis in Mandarin Chinese: Relations to theory of mind

• DOI: 10.1016/j.psychres.2023.115253
• Publication Date: 2023-05-15T15:48:23Z
• Authors: Han Zhang; Alberto Parola; Yuan Zhou; Huiling Wang; Vibeke Bliksted; Riccardo Fusaroli; Wolfram Hinzen
• Keywords: Mandarin Chinese; Argument (complex analysis); Feature (linguistics); Mentalization

Disorganized and impoverished language is a key feature of schizophrenia (Sz), but whether which linguistic changes previously observed in Indo-European languages generalize to other remains unclear. Targeting Mandarin Chinese, we aimed profile aspects grammatical complexity that hypothesized would be reduced task verbalizing social events. 51 individuals with Sz 39 controls participated the animated triangles task, standardized measure theory mind (ToM), participants describe moving either random or an 'intentional' condition. Results revealed clauses embedded as arguments were Sz, both groups produced such aspect more frequently intentional ToM scores specifically correlated production argument clauses. These results document impoverishment Chinese across several structural domains, some its specific relate mentalizing performance.