Perception of facial emotions in brain-damaged patients: Development and validation of a task.
Item
-
Title
-
Perception of facial emotions in brain-damaged patients: Development and validation of a task.
-
Identifier
-
AAI9417496
-
identifier
-
9417496
-
Creator
-
Moss, Edward Maurice.
-
Contributor
-
Adviser: Ruben C. Gur
-
Date
-
1994
-
Language
-
English
-
Publisher
-
City University of New York.
-
Subject
-
Gerontology | Psychology, Clinical | Psychology, Physiological
-
Abstract
-
Stroke produces differing cognitive deficiencies depending upon lesion site. Left hemisphere stroke affects linguistic functions, while right hemisphere stroke disrupts visuospatial processes. Mood disturbances frequently follow stroke, and many survivors and families note persistent mood changes and difficulties perceiving nonverbal communication. Lateralized emotional disturbances are described in other clinical disorders such as epilepsy and head trauma.;Despite abundant tests for assessment of cognitive functioning, and widespread acknowledgement of an interdependent relationship between emotions and cognition, no conventional measures for evaluation of emotion perception exist. As part of a battery of emotion tests (face perception, prosody perception, and mood), two versions of a face perception test were developed to determine whether stroke affected perceptions of subtle gradations in expressions of emotions. Happiness and sadness were selected because they are polar opposites, and universally recognized in cross-cultural studies. Very high quality black-and-white photographs of actors portraying wide ranges of happiness and sadness were created. Neutral faces were a control measure. Stimuli were balanced for the quality and intensity of emotions displayed, via group ratings and a facial muscle coding system (FACS). Separate male and female stimuli were created to avoid possible biases. Subjects nonverbally rank-ordered stimuli in pairwise comparisons (PC task), and also by simply arranging stimuli in order of increasing intensity (sorting, or ST task). Response times (RT) were also recorded.;Subjects were 16 patients with unilateral CVA (10 female, 6 male) and 18 normal elderly age-matched controls (11 female, 7 male). All CVA subjects met clinical and CT scan criteria for admission.;The CVA group differed from controls for rankings of intensity within happy and sad emotions. Comparisons of males produced many more significant differences than females, perhaps due to sex differences in emotion perception. No significant PC differences emerged among females. Male CVA's differed significantly from controls for sad and neutral face rankings, but not happy. The ST task demonstrated discrepancies between CVA's and controls across all emotion conditions for both sexes. These tasks contribute to eventual assessment batteries which augment cognitive evaluations by addressing pathologic emotion changes. Emotion assessment can guide data-based rehabilitation and provide culturally unbiased measures.
-
Type
-
dissertation
-
Source
-
PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
-
degree
-
Ph.D.
