Your words may predict your future mental health | Mariano Sigman

Translator: Enara Caride Reviewer: Serv. de Norm. Lingüística U. de Santiago de Compostela

Existen rexistros históricos que nos permiten saber

We have historical records that allow us to know how the ancient Greeks dressed,

como vestían os antigos gregos,

como vivían,

how they lived,

how they fought ...

como loitaban...

mais, como pensaban?

but how did they think?

One natural idea is that the deepest aspects of human thought --

Unha idea natural é que os aspectos máis profundos do pensamento humano

our ability to imagine,

--a nosa capacidade para imaxinar,

to be conscious,

para sermos conscientes,

to dream --

para soñar--

have always been the same.

foron sempre os mesmos.

Another possibility

Outra posibilidade

is that the social transformations that have shaped our culture

é que as transformacións sociais que deran forma á nosa cultura

puideran cambiar tamén as columnas estruturais do pensamento humano.

may have also changed the structural columns of human thought.

We may all have different opinions about this.

Pode que todos teñamos opinións diferentes sobre isto.

Actually, it's a long-standing philosophical debate.

Realmente, trátase dun vello debate filosófico.

But is this question even amenable to science?

No entanto, pode abordarse esta pregunta desde a ciencia?

Here I'd like to propose

Gustaríame propoñer que,

that in the same way we can reconstruct how the ancient Greek cities looked

do mesmo xeito que recreamos o aspecto das antigas cidades gregas

a partir duns cantos ladrillos,

just based on a few bricks,

that the writings of a culture are the archaeological records,

vexamos os escritos dunha cultura como os rexistros arqueolóxicos,

the fossils, of human thought.

os fósiles do pensamento humano.

And in fact,

E, de feito,

facendo algún tipo de análise psicolóxica

doing some form of psychological analysis

of some of the most ancient books of human culture,

dalgúns dos libros máis antigos da cultura humana,

Julian Jaynes came up in the '70s with a very wild and radical hypothesis:

Julian Jaynes suxeriu nos 70 unha hipótese tan arriscada como radical:

that only 3,000 years ago,

que hai só 3.000 anos,

humans were what today we would call schizophrenics.

os humanos eran o que hoxe chamaríamos esquizofrénicos.

And he made this claim

E fixo esta afirmación

based on the fact that the first humans described in these books

baseándose en que os primeiros humanos descritos neses libros

behaved consistently,

comportábanse de xeito sistemático

in different traditions and in different places of the world,

nas diferentes tradicións e lugares do mundo,

as if they were hearing and obeying voices

como se escoitasen e obedecesen voces

que eles crían que procedían dos Deuses,

that they perceived as coming from the Gods,

or from the muses ...

ou das musas...

e que hoxe chamariamos alucinacións.

what today we would call hallucinations.

And only then, as time went on,

E só máis tarde, co paso do tempo,

they began to recognize that they were the creators,

comezaron a recoñecer que eles mesmos eran os creadores,

the owners of these inner voices.

os donos daquelas voces interiores.

And with this, they gained introspection:

E a partir disto, gañaron introspección:

a capacidade de pensar sobre os propios pensamentos.

the ability to think about their own thoughts.

So Jaynes's theory is that consciousness,

Así que a teoría de Jaynes é que a consciencia,

at least in the way we perceive it today,

polo menos da forma en que a percibimos hoxe,

where we feel that we are the pilots of our own existence --

sentindo que somos pilotos na nosa propia existencia,

is a quite recent cultural development.

é un avance cultural bastante recente.

And this theory is quite spectacular,

E esta teoría é formidable,

mais ten un problema obvio

but it has an obvious problem

which is that it's built on just a few and very specific examples.

que é o feito de estar construída sobre uns poucos exemplos moi específicos.

De xeito que a pregunta é se a teoría

So the question is whether the theory

that introspection built up in human history only about 3,000 years ago

de que a introspección desenvolvida na historia humana hai só 3.000 anos

can be examined in a quantitative and objective manner.

se pode examinar desde un punto de vista cuantitativo e obxectivo.

And the problem of how to go about this is quite obvious.

E o problema de como abordar isto é bastante obvio.

Non é coma se Platón se erguese un día e logo escribise.

It's not like Plato woke up one day and then he wrote,

"Hello, I'm Plato,

"Ola, son Platón,

e desde hoxe, teño unha conciencia completamente introspectiva."

and as of today, I have a fully introspective consciousness."

(Laughter)

(Risas)

And this tells us actually what is the essence of the problem.

E isto, en verdade, dinos cal é a esencia do problema.

We need to find the emergence of a concept that's never said.

Temos que atopar a emerxencia dun concepto que nunca foi dito.

The word introspection does not appear a single time

A palabra "introspección" non aparece nin unha soa vez

in the books we want to analyze.

nos libros que queremos analizar.

So our way to solve this is to build the space of words.

Así que a nosa forma de resolvelo foi construír o espazo das palabras.

This is a huge space that contains all words

Este é un gran espazo que contén todas as palabras

in such a way that the distance between any two of them

dispostas de modo que a distancia entre dúas delas

is indicative of how closely related they are.

é indicativa do estreitamente relacionadas que están.

So for instance,

Por exemplo,

you want the words "dog" and "cat" to be very close together,

un espera que as palabras "can" e "gato" estean moi próximas,

but the words "grapefruit" and "logarithm" to be very far away.

e que "pomelo" e "logaritmo" estean moi separadas.

And this has to be true for any two words within the space.

E isto débese cumprir para cada par de palabras dentro do espazo.

And there are different ways that we can construct the space of words.

E podemos construír o espazo das palabras de diferentes maneiras.

One is just asking the experts,

Unha é preguntándolles aos expertos,

a bit like we do with dictionaries.

un pouco como facemos cos dicionarios.

Another possibility

Outra posibilidade

is following the simple assumption that when two words are related,

é seguir a simple suposición de que cando dúas palabras están relacionadas

tenden a aparecer nas mesmas frases,

they tend to appear in the same sentences,

in the same paragraphs,

nos mesmos parágrafos,

in the same documents,

nos mesmos documentos,

more often than would be expected just by pure chance.

máis veces das que se esperaría por simple casualidade.

And this simple hypothesis,

E esta sinxela hipótese,

this simple method,

este simple método,

with some computational tricks

cunha serie de trucos computacionais

that have to do with the fact

relacionados co feito

that this is a very complex and high-dimensional space,

de que este é un espazo complexo e de gran dimensión,

turns out to be quite effective.

resultou ser moi efectivo.

E para darvos unha mostra do ben que funciona,

And just to give you a flavor of how well this works,

this is the result we get when we analyze this for some familiar words.

este é o resultado conseguido cando analizamos algunhas palabras familiares.

And you can see first

Podedes ver primeiro

that words automatically organize into semantic neighborhoods.

que as palabras se organizan automaticamente en campos semánticos.

Velaí as froitas, as partes do corpo,

So you get the fruits, the body parts,

the computer parts, the scientific terms and so on.

as partes do ordenador, os termos científicos...

O algoritmo tamén identifica que organizamos conceptos en xerarquías.

The algorithm also identifies that we organize concepts in a hierarchy.

So for instance,

Por exemplo,

podedes ver que os termos científicos se distribúen en dúas subcategorías

you can see that the scientific terms break down into two subcategories

of the astronomic and the physics terms.

de termos astronómicos e físicos.

And then there are very fine things.

E logo temos cousas moi sutís.

For instance, the word astronomy,

Por exemplo, a palabra astronomía,

which seems a bit bizarre where it is,

que parece ter unha disposición estraña,

is actually exactly where it should be,

está exactamente onde debería,

between what it is,

entre o que é,

unha ciencia real,

an actual science,

and between what it describes,

e entre o que describe,

the astronomical terms.

os termos astronómicos.

And we could go on and on with this.

E poderiamos seguir e seguir con isto.

En verdade, se ollades para isto un anaco,

Actually, if you stare at this for a while,

and you just build random trajectories,

e unides traxectorias aleatoriamente,

veredes que se parece un pouco a facer poesía.

you will see that it actually feels a bit like doing poetry.

Pasa isto porque, dalgún xeito,

And this is because, in a way,

walking in this space is like walking in the mind.

camiñar por este espazo é como camiñar pola mente.

E por último,

And the last thing

is that this algorithm also identifies what are our intuitions,

este algoritmo tamén identifica cales son as nosas intuicións,

of which words should lead in the neighborhood of introspection.

sobre que palabras deberían ir primeiro ao campo da introspección.

So for instance,

Así, por exemplo,

words such as "self," "guilt," "reason," "emotion,"

palabras como "eu," "culpa," "razón," "emoción,"

are very close to "introspection,"

están moi preto de "introspección,"

but other words,

mentres que outras,

such as "red," "football," "candle," "banana,"

como "vermello," "fútbol," "candea," "plátano"

are just very far away.

están moi lonxe.

E unha vez que construímos o espazo,

And so once we've built the space,

the question of the history of introspection,

a pregunta sobre a historia da introspección,

or of the history of any concept

ou sobre a historia de calquera concepto

que antes parecía abstracta e dalgún xeito difusa,

which before could seem abstract and somehow vague,

becomes concrete --

vólvese concreta,

becomes amenable to quantitative science.

é abordable desde a ciencia cuantitativa.

All that we have to do is take the books,

Todo o que temos que facer é coller os libros,

dixitalizalos,

we digitize them,

and we take this stream of words as a trajectory

e tomar este fluxo de palabras como unha traxectoria,

and project them into the space,

proxectándoo no espazo,

and then we ask whether this trajectory spends significant time

e logo preguntármonos se esta traxectoria pasa un tempo significativo

circulando preto do concepto de introspección.

circling closely to the concept of introspection.

And with this,

E con isto,

we could analyze the history of introspection

poderiamos analizar a historia da introspección

in the ancient Greek tradition,

na tradición da antiga Grecia,

da cal temos o mellor rexistro escrito dispoñible.

for which we have the best available written record.

So what we did is we took all the books --

Así que o que fixemos foi coller todos os libros,

we just ordered them by time --

ordenámolos cronoloxicamente,

e de cada libro collemos as palabras

for each book we take the words

and we project them to the space,

e proxectámolas no espazo,

and then we ask for each word how close it is to introspection,

logo miramos o cerca que cada palabra estaba da introspección,

e fixemos unha media.

and we just average that.

And then we ask whether, as time goes on and on,

Despois preguntámonos se, a medida que pasaba o tempo,

these books get closer, and closer and closer

eses libros se achegaban máis e máis

ao concepto da introspección.

to the concept of introspection.

And this is exactly what happens in the ancient Greek tradition.

E isto é exactamente o que sucede na tradición da Grecia antiga.

So you can see that for the oldest books in the Homeric tradition,

Pódese ver que, dentro dos libros máis antigos na tradición homérica

there is a small increase with books getting closer to introspection.

hai unha pequena aproximación á introspección.

But about four centuries before Christ,

Pero uns catro séculos antes de Cristo,

this starts ramping up very rapidly to an almost five-fold increase

comeza a despegar rapidamente ata case quintuplicarse

of books getting closer, and closer and closer

a aproximación paulatina dos libros

to the concept of introspection.

ao concepto de introspección.

E algo bo disto

And one of the nice things about this

is that now we can ask

é que agora podémonos preguntar

whether this is also true in a different, independent tradition.

se isto tamén é certo nunha tradición diferente e independente.

So we just ran this same analysis on the Judeo-Christian tradition,

Así que empregamos esta mesma análise na tradición xudeocristiá,

e obtivemos virtualmente o mesmo patrón.

and we got virtually the same pattern.

Again, you see a small increase for the oldest books in the Old Testament,

De novo, un pequeno aumento nos libros máis antigos do Antigo Testamento,

and then it increases much more rapidly

e logo un aumento moito máis rápido

nos libros do Novo Testamento.

in the new books of the New Testament.

E logo chegamos ó cumio da introspección

And then we get the peak of introspection

n’as “Confesións de Santo Agostiño”,

in "The Confessions of Saint Augustine,"

about four centuries after Christ.

uns catrocentos anos despois de Cristo.

And this was very important,

E isto foi moi importante,

because Saint Augustine had been recognized by scholars,

porque Santo Agostiño foi recoñecido por eruditos,

philologists, historians,

filólogos, historiadores,

as one of the founders of introspection.

como un dos fundadores da instrospección.

En verdade, algúns considérano o pai da psicoloxía moderna.

Actually, some believe him to be the father of modern psychology.

Así que o noso algoritmo,

So our algorithm,

which has the virtue of being quantitative,

que ten a virtude de ser cuantitativo,

of being objective,

de ser obxectivo,

e, por suposto, sumamente veloz

and of course of being extremely fast --

--opera nunha fracción de segundo--

it just runs in a fraction of a second --

can capture some of the most important conclusions

pode captar algunhas das conclusións máis importantes

desta longa tradición de investigación.

of this long tradition of investigation.

And this is in a way one of the beauties of science,

E isto é dalgún xeito unha das belezas da ciencia,

which is that now this idea can be translated

que é que agora esta idea pode trasladarse

and generalized to a whole lot of different domains.

e estenderse a moitos dominios distintos.

So in the same way that we asked about the past of human consciousness,

Así que do mesmo xeito que preguntamos sobre o pasado da percepción humana,

maybe the most challenging question we can pose to ourselves

quizais a pregunta máis complicada que podemos formularnos

is whether this can tell us something about the future of our own consciousness.

é se isto pode contarnos algo sobre o futuro da nosa propia consciencia.

To put it more precisely,

Dito de forma máis precisa,

se as palabras que pronunciamos hoxe

whether the words we say today

can tell us something of where our minds will be in a few days,

poden dicir algo sobre onde estarán as nosas mentes nuns cantos días,

in a few months

nuns cantos meses

or a few years from now.

ou nuns cantos anos.

And in the same way many of us are now wearing sensors

E da mesma forma en que moitos de nós levamos sensores

that detect our heart rate,

que nos miden o ritmo cardíaco,

our respiration,

a respiración,

our genes,

os xenes,

on the hopes that this may help us prevent diseases,

coa esperanza de que poida axudarnos a previr enfermidades,

podemos preguntarnos se monitorizando e analizando as palabras que dicimos,

we can ask whether monitoring and analyzing the words we speak,

we tweet, we email, we write,

chiamos, enviamos por correo, escribimos,

can tell us ahead of time whether something may go wrong with our minds.

estas poden indicar antes de tempo se algo vai ir mal nas nosas mentes.

E canda Guillermo Cecchi,

And with Guillermo Cecchi,

who has been my brother in this adventure,

o meu irmán nesta aventura,

we took on this task.

fixémonos cargo desta tarefa.

And we did so by analyzing the recorded speech of 34 young people

E fixémolo analizando o discurso gravado de 34 mozos

who were at a high risk of developing schizophrenia.

que tiñan un alto risco de desenvolver esquizofrenia.

And so what we did is, we measured speech at day one,

O que fixemos foi medir o discurso no día un,

and then we asked whether the properties of the speech could predict,

e logo preguntarnos se as propiedades dese discurso poderían predicir,

within a window of almost three years,

nun intervalo de case tres anos,

o futuro desenvolvemento da psicose.

the future development of psychosis.

But despite our hopes,

Pero malia as nosas expectativas,

we got failure after failure.

acadamos un fracaso tras outro.

There was just not enough information in semantics

Non había información suficiente na semántica

to predict the future organization of the mind.

coma para predicir a futura organización da mente.

It was good enough

Era boa dabondo

to distinguish between a group of schizophrenics and a control group,

para distinguir entre un grupo de esquizofrénicos e un grupo de control,

a bit like we had done for the ancient texts,

como fixeramos cos textos antigos,

but not to predict the future onset of psychosis.

mais non para predicir o inicio dunha psicose.

Porén, decatámonos

But then we realized

that maybe the most important thing was not so much what they were saying,

de que quizais o máis importante non era o que estaban a dicir,

senón como o dicían.

but how they were saying it.

More specifically,

Máis especificamente,

it was not in which semantic neighborhoods the words were,

non se trataba do campo semántico ao que pertencían as palabras,

but how far and fast they jumped

senón do lonxe e rápido que saltaban

from one semantic neighborhood to the other one.

dun campo semántico a outro.

And so we came up with this measure,

Así que elaboramos esta medida,

denominada "coherencia semántica",

which we termed semantic coherence,

which essentially measures the persistence of speech within one semantic topic,

que basicamente mide a persistencia da fala dentro dun tema semántico,

within one semantic category.

nunha categoría semántica.

And it turned out to be that for this group of 34 people,

E resultou que neste grupo de 34 persoas,

the algorithm based on semantic coherence could predict,

o algoritmo baseado na coherencia semántica puido predicir,

cunha precisión do 100 por cento,

with 100 percent accuracy,

who developed psychosis and who will not.

quen desenvolvería psicose e quen non.

And this was something that could not be achieved --

E isto foi algo que non se puido conseguir

not even close --

--nin por aproximación--

with all the other existing clinical measures.

con ningunha das medidas clínicas existentes.

And I remember vividly, while I was working on this,

E recordo vividamente, mentres traballaba nisto,

estaba eu sentado diante do ordenador

I was sitting at my computer

and I saw a bunch of tweets by Polo --

e vin uns cantos chíos de Polo

--Polo fora o meu primeiro estudante en Bos Aires,

Polo had been my first student back in Buenos Aires,

and at the time he was living in New York.

e naquel momento estaba a vivir en Nova York

And there was something in this tweets --

E había algo nos seus chíos

I could not tell exactly what because nothing was said explicitly --

--non era quen de dicir o que, non había nada explícito--

pero tiven un forte presentimento,

but I got this strong hunch,

unha forte intuición, de que algo non ía ben.

this strong intuition, that something was going wrong.

So I picked up the phone, and I called Polo,

Así que collín o teléfono e chameino,

e era certo, non se sentía ben.

and in fact he was not feeling well.

And this simple fact,

E este simple feito,

that reading in between the lines,

este ler entre liñas,

I could sense, through words, his feelings,

este sentir, a través das palabras, os seus sentimentos,

foi unha forma de axudar sinxela, pero moi efectiva.

was a simple, but very effective way to help.

What I tell you today

O que vos digo hoxe

is that we're getting close to understanding

é que estamos preto de comprender

how we can convert this intuition that we all have,

como converter esta intuición que todos temos,

that we all share,

que todos compartimos,

into an algorithm.

nun algoritmo.

E, ao facelo,

And in doing so,

we may be seeing in the future a very different form of mental health,

poderiamos ver no futuro unha forma moi diferente de saúde mental,

based on objective, quantitative and automated analysis

baseada nunha análise obxectiva, cuantitativa e automatizada

of the words we write,

das palabras que escribimos,

of the words we say.

das palabras que dicimos.

Gracias.

Grazas.

(Applause)

(Aplausos)