Cognitive Decline? Experts Find Evidence Trump's Mind Is Slowing [View all]
Hints of Donald Trump’s cognitive decline have been seen for the past several months, perhaps even years, as he campaigns to return to the White House, and experts are noticing.
The health and science publication STAT spoke to several experts in memory, psychology, and linguistics about patterns in Trump’s speech, which seems to growing more incoherent. Comparing his speeches from this year to those from 2017, researchers discovered that Trump uses shorter sentences, confuses his word order more often, repeats words and topics, and frequently goes on tangents.
These changes in Trump’s speech could be due to something as benign as mood changes or as serious as the beginnings of Alzheimer’s disease, the experts said. One academic, social psychologist James Pennebaker, performed a statistical analysis of transcripts from Trump speeches between 2015 and 2024, and found telling differences in how the former president and convicted felon speaks.
Pennebaker, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, found that Trump has increased his “all-or-nothing thinking,” using words such as “always,” “never,” and “completely.” This, along with his decrease in the use of positive words and increased references to negative emotions, could be a sign of depression, Pennebaker said.
https://newrepublic.com/post/184690/cognitive-decline-experts-find-evidence-trumps-mind-slowing
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