Neuro-Cognitive Health Degeneration in a Post-Covid World - A Linguistically Induced Sentiment Manipulating Web-App as a Preventative Tool

The Covid-19 pandemic has been linked with significant deterioration of neuro-cognitive health. The forced abnormal isolation mandated by the lockdown has been associated with increased internal stressors, leading to early onset of mental health degeneration. The current challenge for the medical practitioners is to identify tools to help slow down such neurocognitive decline. In this project, we develop a model of sentiment manipulation using linguistic cues that can regulate the affective-motivational state of an individual to reduce triggers of neurocognitive degeneration. Based on the model insights, we build a user-friendly, low-cost Web App, customizable in many languages, to identify and score the primary sentiment of any audio or text to help reduce exposure to content that can potentially trigger internal stressors. In a randomized control experiment with 160 subjects, we find that participants in our target group who consumed content with positive or upbeat cues over a period of 60 days were 3.68 times less likely to report loneliness, 2.1 times less likely to report depressive thoughts and emotions and 1.75 times less likely to report forgetfulness than our control group, providing promising evidence of the potential of positive linguistic cues to prevent or slow down neuro-cognitive degeneration.