What Makes People Better at Describing Photographs?

University of Colorado, Colorado Springs

Status: Completed

Conditions: Healthy Aging

Treatments: Behavioral: Mental Exercise

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT05444114

R15AG063111-01 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

2020-006

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study is being conducted to learn more about how various personal and situational characteristics are related to the ability to provide verbal descriptions of photographs. Participants will perform a brief mental exercise, then see three photographs with instructions to describe each thoroughly. Participants will also complete several other surveys and measures. Collected data will give researchers a better understanding of how different variables relate to speech production.

Full description

This study is being conducted to learn more about how various personal and situational characteristics are related to the the ability to provide verbal descriptions of photographs. Adult participants ages 18-30 and 65-80 will participate in videoconference calls during which they perform a brief mental exercise, then see three photographs with instructions to describe each thoroughly. Descriptions are to be 30 to 60 seconds in length and are audio recorded for later scoring. Participants will also complete several other surveys and measures, including some about anxiety, mindfulness, vocabulary, and demographics. Participation will take approximately 40 to 60 minutes. Collected data will be de-identified, and the aggregate data will give researchers a better understanding of how individuals' personality and cognitive traits and the mental exercise performed before the study relate to peoples' speech production performance.

Enrollment: 182 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 80 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• fluent speakers of English
• ages 18-30 or ages 65-80

Exclusion criteria

• non-fluent speakers of English
• people who are not ages 18-30 or ages 65-80

Trial design

Primary purpose: Basic Science

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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182 participants in 2 patient groups

Mindful Breathing

Experimental group

Description:

Participants follow instructions regarding a mindful breathing exercise on a 10-min audio clip

Treatment:

Behavioral: Mental Exercise

Control

Active Comparator group

Description:

Participants follow instructions and listen to a 10-min audio clip of a story

Treatment:

Behavioral: Mental Exercise