A wrinkle in time: The perception of expressions in the elderly

描述(由申请人提供)：情感识别和表达是人类互动的重要组成部分。很难想象有任何重要的互动中没有情感交流，而情感沟通失误的后果可能是深远的。卫生保健环境是老年人经常与年轻人互动的一个例子，其中有效的情感交流是必不可少的。如果情绪表达被错误识别，这不仅可能导致误诊，还可能产生更广泛的影响，比如老年人失去信任。现有的研究主要集中在老年人是否存在情绪识别缺陷的问题上。然而，情感交流是双向的，同样重要的是，年轻人理解老年人的情感表达。这可能是一项比人们普遍认为的更困难的任务。具体地说，随着年龄的增长，面孔的变化会降低表情的清晰度。皱纹和面部皱纹可以模仿某些表情(例如，嘴角朝下可能看起来很悲伤)，或者通过混淆观察者来干扰其他情感的清晰表达。此外，年轻人对老年人的情感生活持有的刻板印象可能会使他们对老年人的情感归因产生偏见。这两个过程反过来都会导致同理心的减少。具体地说，移情反应的一个关键因素，即模仿反应(即对他人非言语行为的自动和无意识的模仿，有助于促进社会互动中的融洽和从属关系)，可能会受到信号清晰度的缺乏和刻板印象过程的干扰。本文提出的研究考察了年轻人是如何感知和反应老年人的情绪表达的。其中一组研究将集中在年轻人准确标记这种情绪表达的能力上。这组研究将使用创新的基于计算机的方法，克服过去阻碍这一问题研究的限制，例如缺乏老年模型控制的情绪表达，以及对表达的客观评估问题。还将评估年轻人对老年人的情感生活和反应所持的情感陈规定型观念，并调查他们在偏见情感表达方面的作用。另一组研究将集中在移情反应上。在这些研究中，我们将评估年轻人在多大程度上模仿老年人的面部和姿势情绪表达。没有这样的模仿会被认为是缺乏融洽的关系，并使互动变得不那么愉快和友好。这项研究将是第一个旨在澄清我们对年轻人感知和反应老年人情绪的方式的理解--鉴于美国人口老龄化，这个问题的普遍意义越来越大。 与公共健康相关：我们建议研究(A)年轻人对老年人情感生活的刻板印象，(B)老年人对面部表情的感知，以及(C)感知者对这些表情的面部和姿势模仿的反应。现有证据表明，年轻人不能准确地处理老年人的情感表达。我们认为，由于年龄相关的面部外表变化导致的刻板印象和知觉偏差相互作用，降低了老年人表情的信号清晰度，并共同阻碍了对他们表情的模仿。拟议的研究将是第一次澄清我们对这些过程的理解。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Emotion recognition and expression are an essential part of human interaction. It is hard to imagine any significant interaction in which no emotions are communicated and the consequences of emotional miscommunications can be far reaching. Health care settings are one example of interactions where the elderly routinely interact with younger people and where efficient emotional communication is essential. If emotion expressions are misidentified, this may not only lead to misdiagnosis, but can also have far broader effects, such as a loss of trust on the part of the elderly. The extant research has largely focused on the question of whether the elderly have emotion recognition deficits. However, emotion communication is a two way street and it is equally important that younger people understand the emotion expressions of older people. This may be a more difficult task than is generally assumed. Specifically, with age the face changes in ways that reduce the clarity of emotion expressions. Wrinkles and facial folds can mimic some expressions (for example, downturned corners of the mouth may look sad) or interfere with the clear expression of other emotions by confusing the observer. Further, the stereotypes that young perceivers hold regarding the emotional lives of the elderly may bias the emotional attributions they make to older persons. Both processes in turn can lead to a reduction in empathy. Specifically, a crucial element of empathic responding, mimicry reactions (i.e., the automatic and unconscious imitation of the nonverbal behavior of others that serves to facilitate feelings of rapport and affiliation in social interaction) can be disturbed both by lack of signal clarity and by stereotype processes. The studies proposed herein examine how emotion expressions shown by the elderly are perceived and reacted to by younger persons. One set of studies will focus on the capacity of younger individuals to accurately label such emotion expressions. This set of studies will use innovative computer based approaches that overcome limitations that have hindered research on this question in the past, such as the absence of controlled emotion expressions by elderly models and the issue of objective assessment of the expression. Emotional stereotypes that young adults hold regarding the emotional lives and responses of older individuals will also be assessed and their role in biasing the perception of emotion expressions will be investigated. Another set of studies will focus on empathic responding. In these studies we will assess to what degree younger individuals imitate the facial and postural emotion expressions of older individuals. The absence of such imitation is felt as a lack of rapport and renders interactions less pleasant and welcoming. This research will be the first aimed at clarifying our understanding of the way younger people perceive and react to the emotions of older people - a question of increasing general significance given the aging of the American population. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: We propose to study (a) the stereotypes that young adults hold regarding the emotional lives of the elderly, (b) the perception of facial expressions shown by the elderly and (c) reactions to these expressions in terms of facial and postural mimicry by the perceiver. Available evidence suggests that young adults do not accurately process the emotional expressions of the elderly. We argue that stereotypes and perceptual biases due to age related appearance changes in the face interact to degrade the signal clarity of expressions shown by the elderly and combine to hinder mimicry of their expressions. The proposed research will be the first to clarify our understanding of these processes.