(PS3-15) Examining Verbosity as a Linguistic Marker in Rumination

Extensive evidence supports the presence of distinct linguistic markers in the narrative language of depressed individuals (Rude et al., 2004; Sloan, 2005), one of which is speech verbosity. Depressed individuals may struggle to connect their inner psychological experiences with precise words and verbally articulate complex emotions (Bucci & Freedman, 1981), resulting in greater verbosity during self-expression (Yahya & Rahim, 2023). Literature examining verbosity in speech in the context of depression is mixed. Trifu et al. (2017) found greater verbosity in speech samples from clinically depressed individuals compared to healthy controls. Likewise, Himmelstein et al. (2018) found that clinically depressed individuals, but not healthy controls, spoke more words when recalling negative versus positive memories. However, Capecelatro et al. (2013) found no significant word count difference in speech from participants with high or low depressive symptom levels, and Albuquerque et al. (2021) observed a negative correlation between depression symptoms and verbosity.

One potential explanation for the inconsistent findings may be due to differences in focal speech topics across the studies, which ranged in both valence and personal relevance to the speaker. Given that deficits in expression are expected specifically with regard to articulating complex emotions, it is surprising that no study to date has investigated verbosity of speech samples that focus on idiographic topics of rumination. Rumination is a central feature of depression (Nolen-Hoeksema, 2000). Furthermore, Rumination is increasingly understood to be a transdiagnostic mechanism that is implicated in the development of anxiety (Ehring & Watkins, 2008; McLaughlin & Nolen-Hoeksema, 2011). Thus, verbosity may be a potential linguistic marker of rumination itself, independent of depression. The current study aimed to investigate this possibility by collecting speech samples that focused on the most distressing idiographic topics of rumination. Furthermore, prior investigations collected samples in the presence of study administrators, potentially limiting participant willingness to disclose intimate emotional information and influencing verbosity. The current study sought to address this potential confound by allowing participants to speak out loud in private.

The present study recruited high and low trait ruminators from a college undergraduate population (N=66). Participants were audio-recorded while speaking in a private room about their endorsed most distressing autobiographical topic of rumination and an autobiographical neutral topic. Transcribed recordings were analyzed for total word count. Initial results revealed a significant main effect of topic condition such that participants were more verbose when speaking about their rumination topics compared to neutral topics, suggesting that verbosity is a feature of rumination. However, there was no main effect of trait rumination status, nor was there a significant interaction between topic condition and trait rumination status. Data collection will be completed by summer 2024.