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In psychology, alogia (; from Greek privative a, "without", and λόγος, "speech" + New Latin -ia) is poor thought inferred from speech and language usage. "alogia An impoverishment in thinking that is inferred from observing speech and language behavior. There may be brief and concrete replies to questions and restriction in the amount of spontaneous speech (termed poverty of speech). Sometimes the speech is adequate in amount but conveys little information because it is overconcrete, overabstract, repetitive, or stereotyped (termed poverty of content)." There may be a general lack of additional, unprompted content seen in normal speech, so replies to questions may be brief and concrete, with less spontaneous speech. This is termed poverty of speech or Laconic phrase speech. "laconic speech Condition characterized by a reduction in the quantity of spontaneous speech; replies to questions are brief and unelaborated, and little or no unprompted additional information is provided. Occurs in major depression, schizophrenia, and organic mental disorders. Also called poverty of speech." The amount of speech may be normal but conveys little information because it is vague, empty, stereotyped, overconcrete, overabstract, or repetitive. "poverty of content of speech Speech that is adequate in amount but conveys little information because of vagueness, emptiness, or stereotyped phrases." This is termed poverty of content or poverty of content of speech. Under Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms used in clinical research, thought blocking is considered a part of alogia, and so is increased latency in response.
This condition is associated with schizophrenia, dementia, severe depression, and autism. "poverty of ideas a thought disturbance, often associated with schizophrenia, dementia, and severe depression. ...." As a symptom, it is commonly seen in with schizophrenia and schizotypal personality disorder, and is traditionally considered a negative symptom. It can complicate psychotherapy severely because of the considerable difficulty in holding a fluent conversation.
The alternative meaning of alogia is inability to speak because of dysfunction in the central nervous system, "alogia n. inability to speak because of dysfunction in the central nervous system. In a less severe form, it is sometimes referred to as dyslogia."
found in mental deficiency and dementia.
"alogia Inability to speak because of mental deficiency or an episode of dementia."
In this sense, the word is synonymous with aphasia,
and in less severe form, it is sometimes called dyslogia.
Alogia is characterized by a lack of speech, often caused by a disruption in the thought process. Usually, an injury to the left side of the brain may cause alogia to appear in an individual. While in conversation, alogic patients will reply very sparsely and their answers to questions will lack spontaneous content; sometimes, they will even fail to answer at all. Their responses will be brief, generally only appearing as a response to a question or prompt.
Apart from the lack of content in a reply, the manner in which the person delivers the reply is affected as well. Patients affected by alogia will often slur their responses, and not pronounce the consonants as clearly as usual. The few words spoken usually trail off into a whisper, or are just ended by the second syllable. Studies have shown a correlation between alogic ratings in individuals and the amount and duration of pauses in their speech when responding to a series of questions posed by the researcher. The inability to speak stems from a deeper mental inability that causes alogic patients to have difficulty grasping the right words mentally, as well as formulating their thoughts. A study investigating alogiacs and their results on the category fluency task showed that people with schizophrenia who exhibit alogia display a more disorganized semantic memory than controls. While both groups produced the same number of words, the words produced by people with schizophrenia were much more disorderly and the results of cluster analysis revealed bizarre coherence in the alogiac group.
If the condition is assessed using a language other than the individual's primary language, the medical professional needs to make sure that the problem is not from language barriers.
This condition is associated with schizophrenia, dementia, and severe depression.
| + Example of "poverty of speech" "This is a restriction in the amount of spontaneous speech so that replies to questions tend to be brief, concrete, and unelaborated. Unprompted additional information is rarely provided. For example, in answer to the question, "How many children do you have?" the patient replies, "Two. A girl and a boy. The girl is thirteen and the boy ten." "Two" is all that is required to answer the question, and the rest of the reply is additional information. " | |
| Poverty of speech | Normal speech |
| Q: Do you have any children? A: Yes. Q: How many? A: Two. Q: How old are they? A: Six and sixteen. Q: Are they boys or girls? A: One of each. Q: Who is the sixteen-year-old? A: The boy. Q: What is his name? A: Edmond. Q: And the girl's? A: Alice. | Q: Do you have any children? A: Yes, a boy and a girl. Q: How old are they? A: Edmond is sixteen and Alice is six. |
The following example of "poverty of content of speech" is a response from a patient when asked why he was in a hospital. Speech is vague, conveys little information, but is not grossly incoherent and the amount of speech is not reduced. "I often contemplate—it is a general stance of the world—it is a tendency which varies from time to time—it defines things more than others—it is in the nature of habit—this is what I would like to say to explain everything." (2025). 9781493925285, Springer Science+Business Media. ISBN 9781493925285
Previous studies and analyses conclude that at least three factors are needed to cover both the positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia; the three are: psychotic, disorganization, and negative symptom factors. Studies suggest that an inappropriate affect is strongly associated with bizarre behavior and positive formal thought disorder on a disorganization factor; attention impairment correlates significantly with psychotic, disorganization, and negative symptom factors. Alogia contains both positive and negative symptoms, with the poverty of content of speech as the disorganization factor, and poverty of speech, response latency, and thought blocking as the negative symptom factors.
Alogia is a major diagnostic sign of schizophrenia, when Organic disease mental disorders have been excluded.
In schizophrenia, negative symptoms including flattening of affect, avolition, and alogia are responsible for the considerable morbidity of the disease compared with other psychotic disorders.
Negative symptoms are common in the prodromal and residual phases of the disease and can be severe.
During the first year, negative symptoms can progress, especially alogia, which may start off from a relatively low rate. Within 2 years, up to 25% of patients will have significant negative symptoms. (2025). 9781451100471, Wolters Kluwer. ISBN 9781451100471
Psychotic symptoms tend to diminish as the individuals age, but negative symptoms tend to persist.
Prominent negative symptoms at disease onset, including alogia, are good predictors of worse outcomes. (2025). 9781493925285, Springer Science+Business Media. ISBN 9781493925285
Negative symptoms can arise in the presence of other psychiatric symptoms. Positive symptoms are a common cause of apathy, social withdrawal, and alogia. Secondary causes of negative symptoms, such as depression and demoralization, often remit within a year, which helps distinguishing them from primary negative symptoms. Symptoms that don't diminish over a year with medications should be reconsidered as possible primary negative symptoms.
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