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Main Authors: Cilia, Nicole Dalia, De Stefano, Claudio, Fontanella, Francesco, Siniscalchi, Sabato Marco
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.04762
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author Cilia, Nicole Dalia
De Stefano, Claudio
Fontanella, Francesco
Siniscalchi, Sabato Marco
author_facet Cilia, Nicole Dalia
De Stefano, Claudio
Fontanella, Francesco
Siniscalchi, Sabato Marco
contents Using kinematic properties of handwriting to support the diagnosis of neurodegenerative disease is a real challenge: non-invasive detection techniques combined with machine learning approaches promise big steps forward in this research field. In literature, the tasks proposed focused on different cognitive skills to elicitate handwriting movements. In particular, the meaning and phonology of words to copy can compromise writing fluency. In this paper, we investigated how word semantics and phonology affect the handwriting of people affected by Alzheimer's disease. To this aim, we used the data from six handwriting tasks, each requiring copying a word belonging to one of the following categories: regular (have a predictable phoneme-grapheme correspondence, e.g., cat), non-regular (have atypical phoneme-grapheme correspondence, e.g., laugh), and non-word (non-meaningful pronounceable letter strings that conform to phoneme-grapheme conversion rules). We analyzed the data using a machine learning approach by implementing four well-known and widely-used classifiers and feature selection. The experimental results showed that the feature selection allowed us to derive a different set of highly distinctive features for each word type. Furthermore, non-regular words needed, on average, more features but achieved excellent classification performance: the best result was obtained on a non-regular, reaching an accuracy close to 90%.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2307_04762
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle How word semantics and phonology affect handwriting of Alzheimer's patients: a machine learning based analysis
Cilia, Nicole Dalia
De Stefano, Claudio
Fontanella, Francesco
Siniscalchi, Sabato Marco
Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
Using kinematic properties of handwriting to support the diagnosis of neurodegenerative disease is a real challenge: non-invasive detection techniques combined with machine learning approaches promise big steps forward in this research field. In literature, the tasks proposed focused on different cognitive skills to elicitate handwriting movements. In particular, the meaning and phonology of words to copy can compromise writing fluency. In this paper, we investigated how word semantics and phonology affect the handwriting of people affected by Alzheimer's disease. To this aim, we used the data from six handwriting tasks, each requiring copying a word belonging to one of the following categories: regular (have a predictable phoneme-grapheme correspondence, e.g., cat), non-regular (have atypical phoneme-grapheme correspondence, e.g., laugh), and non-word (non-meaningful pronounceable letter strings that conform to phoneme-grapheme conversion rules). We analyzed the data using a machine learning approach by implementing four well-known and widely-used classifiers and feature selection. The experimental results showed that the feature selection allowed us to derive a different set of highly distinctive features for each word type. Furthermore, non-regular words needed, on average, more features but achieved excellent classification performance: the best result was obtained on a non-regular, reaching an accuracy close to 90%.
title How word semantics and phonology affect handwriting of Alzheimer's patients: a machine learning based analysis
topic Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.04762