The Structure and Content of Meaning in Speech Reflects Mental Health
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Mental health shapes the progression and content of thought. Studies have linked depression, anxiety, and stress with repetitive negative thoughts, but it remains unclear whether these disturbances are reflected in the structure of an individual's speech. We introduce an approach to quantify the structure of thought as expressed in language, applying it to memory recountings from 82 individuals across six psychotherapy sessions. We model each recounting’s semantic progression with contextual embeddings, and use persistent homology to identify loops of meaning, as recountings circle back upon themselves. More loops are associated with depression, anxiety, stress, and negative affect, and with negative self-referential language, implicating them as geometric markers of negative fixation and rumination. Semantic content also relates to mental health. However, neither semantic structure nor content mediate therapeutic improvement. These findings reveal that the semantic structure of speech offers a quantitative window into thought disturbances in depressive and anxiety disorders.
Source: PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints)
Language: English
Topic: Mental Health via Writing
Subfield: Social Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7221833487