Experts say Trump’s speaking style shows ‘potential indications of cognitive decline’
Experts say Trump’s speaking style shows ‘potential indications of cognitive decline’
‘There’s reasonable evidence suggestive of forms of dementia,” clinical psychologist says after reviewing Trump speeches
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But when experts viewed clips from 2024 and compared them to clips from 2017, they noted that Trump’s speech included more short sentences, a confused order of words, repetition and extended digressions. The causes could vary, some worse than others, including mood changes, trying to win over a certain group of people, natural aging or it could be the start of a cognitive condition such as Alzheimer’s disease, the experts said.
In an analysis for STAT, fellow University of Texas social psychologist James Pennebaker reviewed transcripts of interviews with Trump from 2015 until 2024. He found a major rise in “all-or-nothing thinking” which is signified by the use of words such as “completely,” “never” and “always.”
That trend could indicate depression, Pennebaker said, which also connects to his use of fewer positive words than earlier, and also his many references to negative emotions following his departure from the White House.
A rise in all-or-nothing thinking is connected to cognitive decline. Pennebaker told STAT that Biden’s all-or-nothing thinking has also increased.
Pennebaker noted that a linguistic metric of analytic thinking reveals that Trump’s levels of complexity are remarkably low – most presidential candidates range between 60 and 70 in the metric, while Trump ranges from 10 to 24, something Pennebaker called “staggering.”