Assessing Naturalistic Communication in Parkinson’s Disease: A Passive Audio Capture Study

Parkinson’s disease (PD) affects motor control including the movements necessary for speech production, which can impair everyday communication. This study examined conversational behavior in people with Parkinson’s disease (PWPD) and healthy controls (HCs) using passive audio recordings captured in naturalistic environments. Conversational samples were analyzed for time in the vicinity of conversation, average conversation length, sentence purpose, conversation initiation, and thematic content. These ecologically valid metrics allowed for direct comparison between PWPD and HCs using consistent observational methods. Findings reveal that PWPD spend a significantly less time in the vicinity of conversation than HCs. However, no statistically significant differences were observed between groups in average conversation length, sentence purpose, or conversation initiation. PWPD and HC differed in conversational themes, with PWPD more likely to engage in home-based topics.These results suggest that reduced conversational engagement in PD may be driven more by environmental and social factors than by conversational ability. This study contributes to the growing body of literature advocating for ecologically grounded communication research in neurological populations.