--- title: "On Automatic Detection of Cognitive Decline — Tamburini 2026" description: "The paper instead proposes longitudinal analysis that follows each individual's linguistic behaviour across… 90% accuracy. 3 references." authors: ["Fabio Tamburini"] year: 2026 venue: "Proceedings of the Sixth Resources and ProcessIng of linguistic, para-linguistic and extra-linguistic Data from people with various forms of cognitive/psychiatric/developmental impairments in cooperation with the MENTAL.ai consortium" source: "https://aclanthology.org/2026.rapid-1.5/" doi: "10.63317/47jdijk85qgp" licence: "CC BY-NC 4.0 (ELRA, LREC proceedings)" licence_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/" summary_licence: "Elamur Cosmic License" canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/tamburini-2026-automatic-detection-cognitive-decline/" --- [Elamur Research](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/tamburini-2026-automatic-detection-cognitive-decline/) [home](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/) / [2026](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/2026/page/38/) / On Automatic Detection of Cognitive Decline # On Automatic Detection of Cognitive Decline **Authors:** [Fabio Tamburini](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/fabio-tamburini/) · **Year:** 2026 · **Venue:** [Proceedings of the Sixth Resources and ProcessIng of linguistic, para-linguistic and extra-linguistic Data from people with various forms of cognitive/psychiatric/developmental impairments in cooperation with the MENTAL.ai consortium](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/rapid/) ([Resources and ProcessIng of linguistic, para-linguistic and extra-linguistic Data from people with various forms of cognitive/psychiatric/developmental impairments in cooperation with the MENTAL.ai consortium 2026](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/rapid/2026/)) · **Publisher:** [European Language Resources Association (ELRA)](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/publishers/european-language-resources-association-elra/) · **Licence:** [CC BY-NC 4.0 (ELRA, LREC proceedings)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) **Links:** [Publisher's page](https://aclanthology.org/2026.rapid-1.5/) · [PDF](https://aclanthology.org/2026.rapid-1.5.pdf) · [DOI 10.63317/47jdijk85qgp](https://doi.org/10.63317/47jdijk85qgp) · [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W7166540112) **Citations:** 0 citations (OpenAlex, 2026-10-14) ## Summary This position paper by Fabio Tamburini asks how language technology can catch cognitive decline, from Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) to early Alzheimer's disease, soon enough for intervention and population-wide screening. It reviews work on Digital Linguistic Biomarkers (DLBs), quantifiable properties of speech and writing that range from how varied a person's vocabulary is and how complex their sentence structure is to fluency, semantic coherence and acoustic characteristics. The author argues that the dominant setup is poorly suited to the problem. In that setup, a classifier labels a person from language samples collected on one occasion. Decline unfolds continuously over many years, and individual factors like cognitive reserve shift when symptoms surface. A one-off snapshot therefore struggles to separate pathology from a person's own baseline. The paper instead proposes longitudinal analysis that follows each individual's linguistic behaviour across decades. To support this, the author compiles and examines a long-term corpus of spontaneous speech from well-known public figures. The detailed design and findings of that experiment fall in a portion of the text not provided here. The work matters because it shifts DLB research from cross-sectional accuracy toward tracking change within each person. ## Key points - Context figures cited from the Alzheimer's Association (2025): - About 7.2 million Americans aged 65+ have Alzheimer's dementia, a number projected to approach 13.8 million by 2060. - MCI affects roughly 12–18% of people over 60, and 10–15% of them progress to dementia each year. - In shared tasks (ADReSS/ADReSSo and the PROCESS Grand Challenge at ICASSP-2025), the best systems reached F1 scores of roughly 70–80% in 2- or 3-class settings based on clinical judgment. - Across the literature, separating Alzheimer's patients from healthy controls often exceeds 90% accuracy. Distinguishing MCI from controls, the clinically more valuable case, falls to around 75–80%. - Cognitive reserve, inferred through proxies such as education, occupation and questionnaires like CRIq, can postpone diagnosis while pathology continues. This weakens single-time-point classification. - The proposed alternative is a longitudinal corpus of spontaneous speech from famous individuals spanning decades, used to study linguistic change within each person over time. *Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.* ## Institutions - [University of Bologna](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/university-of-bologna/) — University, Bologna, Italy · 17 works · 1,821 citations 📚 Shelves (8): [🎭 Arts and Humanities](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/) · 16,039 works · [🗣️ Language and Linguistics](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/language-and-linguistics/) · 15,891 works · [💭 Psychology](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/psychology/) · 1,552 works · [💭 Social Psychology](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/psychology/social-psychology/) · 306 works · [🩺 Medicine](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/medicine/) · 241 works · [🧠 Neuroscience](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/neuroscience/) · 165 works · [🧠 Cognitive Neuroscience](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/neuroscience/cognitive-neuroscience/) · 164 works · [🩺 Psychiatry and Mental health](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/medicine/psychiatry-and-mental-health/) · 9 works ## Cite Cite as: Fabio Tamburini. 2026. On Automatic Detection of Cognitive Decline. Proceedings of the Sixth Resources and ProcessIng of linguistic, para-linguistic and extra-linguistic Data from people with various forms of cognitive/psychiatric/developmental impairments in cooperation with the MENTAL.ai consortium. The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. ```bibtex @inproceedings{tamburini2026automatic, title = {{On Automatic Detection of Cognitive Decline}}, author = {Fabio Tamburini}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Sixth Resources and ProcessIng of linguistic, para-linguistic and extra-linguistic Data from people with various forms of cognitive/psychiatric/developmental impairments in cooperation with the MENTAL.ai consortium}, year = {2026}, doi = {10.63317/47jdijk85qgp}, url = {https://doi.org/10.63317/47jdijk85qgp} } ``` - [← previous Omnivorous Agreement, like Uyghur Backness Harmony, is a Challenge for Tier-Based Strict Locality](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/verbil-2026-omnivorous-agreement-like-uyghur-backness/) - [next → On extralinguistic motivation behind food-specific metaphorical transfers in the history of English](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/kowalczyk-2026-extralinguistic-motivation-behind-food-specific/) - [↑ back to papers of 2026](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/2026/page/38/) ## References 3 references, 0 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet. 1. Alzheimer’s Association. 2025. 2025 Alzheimer’s disease facts and figures. Alzheimer’s & Dementia, 21(4):e70235. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Alzheimer%E2%80%99s+Association%2E+2025%2E+2025+Alzheimer%E2%80%99s+disease+facts+and+figures%2E+Alzheimer%E2%80%99s+%26+Dementia%2C+21%284%29%3Ae70235%2E) 2. Sachin Anap, Satish Jondhale, Balasaheb Agarkar, and Sachin Chaudhari. 2025. Parkinson’s disease detection from speech using combination of empirical wavelet transform and Hilbert transform. International Journal of Speech Technology, 28(1):185–194. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Sachin+Anap%2C+Satish+Jondhale%2C+Balasaheb+Agarkar%2C+and+Sachin+Chaudhari%2E+2025%2E+Parkinson%E2%80%99s+disease+detection+from+speech+using+combination+of+empirical+wavelet+transform+and+Hilbert+transform%2E+Internati) 3. Limitations and Ethical Considerations Tomas Arias-Vergara, Juan Camilo Vasquez Correa, Juan Rafael Orozco-Arroyave, and Elmar Nöth. 2018. Speaker models for monitoring Parkinson’s disease progression considering different communication channels and acoustic conditions. Speech Communication, 101(101… [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Limitations+and+Ethical+Considerations+Tomas+Arias%2DVergara%2C+Juan+Camilo+Vasquez+Correa%2C+Juan+Rafael+Orozco%2DArroyave%2C+and+Elmar+N%C3%B6th%2E+2018%2E+Speaker+models+for+monitoring+Parkinson%E2%80%99s+disease+progression) *Updated 1 November 2026*