Application of artifical intelligence principles to the analysis of "crazy" speech.

Artificial intelligence computer simulation methods can be used to investigate psychotic or "crazy" speech. Here, symbolic reasoning algorithms establish semantic networks that schematize speech. These semantic networks consist of two main structures: case frames and object taxonomies. Node-based reasoning rules apply to object taxonomies and pathway-based reasoning rules apply to case frames. Normal listeners may recognize speech as "crazy talk" based on violations of node- and pathway-based reasoning rules. In this article, three separate segments of schizophrenic speech illustrate violations of these rules. This artificial intelligence approach is compared and contrasted with other neurolinguistic approaches and is discussed as a conceptual link between neurobiological and psychodynamic understandings of psychopathology.