Narrative Length and Speech Rate in Battered Women

Abstract

Narrative length and speech rate of traumatic recollections have been previously associated with different emotions and adjustment trajectories after trauma. However, the evidence is limited and the results are mixed. The present study aimed to evaluate length (i.e., word count) and speech rate (i.e., words per minute) in narratives of events with different valence (i.e., neutral, positive, and negative/traumatic) by 50 battered women (trauma group) and 50 non-traumatized women (controls). The results showed that traumatic narratives by the trauma group were longer than those by the control group. Moreover, they were inversely related to time since the event and anxiety during disclosure, whereas the speech rate was also inversely associated with anxiety, as well as with peritraumatic dissociation and avoidance. The shorter narratives for positive events and a decelerated speech pattern for traumatic experiences predicted psychological symptoms. Additionally, the individual's emotional state predicted narrative aspects, with bidirectional effects. Our findings showed that linguistic characteristics of traumatic narratives (but also of narratives of positive events) revealed information about how the victims elaborated autobiographical memories and coped with the trauma.