A study comparing the language abilities of 22 healthy young individuals, 24 healthy older individuals and 22 people with MCI, has found that those with MCI:
- were much less concise in conveying information
- produced much longer sentences
- had a hard time staying on point
- were much more roundabout in getting their point across.
So, for example, when given an exercise in which they had to join up three words (e.g., “pen”, “ink” and “paper”), the healthy volunteers typically joined the three in a simple sentence, while the MCI group gave circuitous accounts such as going to the shop and buying a pen.
Additionally, when asked to repeat phrases read out by the interviewer, those with MCI had trouble when given phrases involving ambiguous pronouns (e.g., “Fred visited Bob after his graduation”), although they had no trouble with more complex sentences.
A caveat: if you're just one of those people who has always talked like this, don't panic! It's a matter of change and deterioration, not a stable personality trait.
Reference:
Janet Sherman presented the findings at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston, in February 2017.
