Measuring Executive Behavior in Psychiatric Patients and Controls With Recurrence Quantification Analysis

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2018-07-06
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en
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Abstract
Executive functioning is impaired in mental disorders and defined as being dynamical. However, it is often analyzed with linear measures. In recent years nonlinearity is used more often when studying dynamical systems but has been sparsely used for researching executive functioning in mentally ill patients. The purpose of the current study was to examine the range of utility of nonlinear measures with recurrence quantification analysis in quantifying executive functioning within the random number generation task in patients and controls. To this aim, a multivariate analysis and two multinomial regressions were performed. Results showed group differences in randomness on three linear measures being coupon, adjacency and phi 2-gram scores, and four nonlinear measures being determinism, entropy, laminarity and recurrence rate between groups. Furthermore, the presented random number generation task was able to differentiate between patients and healthy participants, based on a linear measure being Adjacency, and a nonlinear measure, being recurrence rate. Future research should further examine the sensitivity and specificity of the different linear and nonlinear measures, collect normative data, and compare the random number generation paradigm with other neuropsychological tasks.
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Faculteit der Sociale Wetenschappen
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