Increased Self-Focus and Diminished Informativity: Referential and Structural Properties of Narrative Speech Production in Borderline Personality Disorder

Background Narrative speech production (NSP), i.e., the conceptualization, linguistic formulation, and articulation of a story, is a multifaceted process underpinned by cognitive functions and mentalization ability, often impaired in individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD). This study examines differences in linguistic formulation between individuals with BPD and healthy controls (HCs) and explores associations between linguistic formulation and temporal parameters in both groups. Methods Speech of 33 BPD and 31 HC individuals was recorded in three task types (telling their previous day, retelling a story, picture sequences). Features of linguistic formulation were extracted with part-of-speech tagging and parsing, while temporal parameters were extracted with automatic speech recognition. Results A series of linear mixed-effects models revealed that NSP of individuals with BPD is mainly characterized by fewer content words, more pronouns and first-person singular verbs, and lower syntactic complexity than HCs’. Spearman correlation matrix showed a negative association between the use of first-person singular verbs and the number of silent pauses, and a positive association between syntactic complexity and the number of filled pauses. Conclusions Findings indicate diminished referential and structural informativity, and an increased self-focus in BPD, suggesting that subjects may struggle to utilize cognitive resources necessary for cohesive, listener-oriented NSP.