Objective biomarkers of cognitive performance in older adults with mild cognitive impairment: acoustic features of affective prosody.

Objectives: To explore negative affective prosody production patterns in older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and identify acoustic features as objective biomarkers for cognitive performances.

Methods: We recruited 42 older adults with MCI and 29 healthy controls (HC). The cognitive performances were assessed with the auditory verbal learning test-HuaShan version, the Trail Making Test A, the Digit Span-Forward, and the Digit Span-Backward. Acoustic features were extracted with the PRAAT software.

Results: There were significant differences between older adults with MCI and HC on anger sentences (t=-2.14, p=0.036, Cohen's d=0.52) and disgust sentences (Z=1.97, p=0.049, |r|=0.23). Duration in fearful sentences (β=-0.511, p=0.002) and degree of voice breaks in angry sentences (β=0.423, p=0.009) were identified as objective biomarkers for predicting verbal memory.

Conclusions: Older adults with MCI have deficits in the production pattern of angry and disgusted prosody. Clinicians could assess verbal memory decline by temporal features in negative emotional prosody.