Analysis of narrative examples obtained through fables in healthy adults aged 20-30: Pilot study

Fables are a literary genre that deals with behaviors and thoughts that society either embraces or opposes. Syntax, which is the structural basis of language, is defined as arranging words into sentences for the speaker to express thoughts and feelings clearly and definitively. Critical thinking, on the other hand, encompasses certain mental processes such as identifying problems, distinguishing and controlling changes in problem situations. An increase in cognitive load in the content of speech leads to an increase in syntactic complexity. Various studies have found that the narration of fables and critical thinking questions related to fables reveal syntactic complexity in language. Although there are studies on the level of syntactic complexity in responses to critical thinking questions through fables in childhood and adolescent periods, there is insufficient data available for young adults. In this study, critical thinking and syntactic complexity in narrative examples obtained through fables were examined in healthy individuals aged 20-30 without a diagnosis of primary neurological/psychiatric illness. The data obtained from the study are planned to be used for the development of assessment tools and the establishment of a normative database for evaluating language and critical thinking skills of individuals with acquired brain injury aged 20-30 in clinical settings. ​Participants between the ages of 20-30 were first administered the Addenbrook Cognitive Assessment Battery, and 33 individuals who scored above 89 points were included in the study. Participants were asked to narrate a fable after reading it and were then asked questions related to the fable. Transcriptions of the narrative of the fable and the responses to critical thinking questions were converted into text. Transcriptions were analyzed in terms of average word length, type-token ratio, sentence structures (simple, complex, sequential), number of verbs, and verb density. Values obtained from the narrative example were compared with those obtained from the responses to critical thinking questions.