Nonverbal Behavior and the Elderly

Question 1

The key point for nonverbal behavior and the elderly

Answer 1

That there is considerable variability in the encoding and decoding of nonverbal behavior among the elderly

Question 2

Changes in paralanguage for elderly

Answer 2

• Pitch increase for males
• Increase in jitter (varying pitch of voice; produces a rough sound)
• Increase in shimmer (varying loudness of voice; produces shaky quality)
• Decreased speech rate
• Increase dysfluency (e.g. hesitations, speech errors, etc.) it is comparable to that of elementary school children

Question 3

Vocal behavior - encoding

Answer 3

• Young adults speak to the elderly with high vocal intensity and high pitch, especially of they have minimal contact with elderly people
• People speak more slowly to elderly vs. young adults (better choice than 1st statement)

Question 4

Vocal behavior - decoding

Answer 4

• People can make gross judgements about a speaker’s age from his/her voice
• Negative stereotypes are often associated with voices of the elderly
• The more slowly a person speaks, the older they are judged to be

Question 5

Elderly decoding of paralanguage

Answer 5

• Hearing problems, esp. fast speech and background noise
• Can improve with enhanced intonation
• Elderly do not perform as well as young adults on decoding emotion in the voice, even when controlling for hearing loss, working memory, and cognitive decline

Question 6

Encoding of Facial Expression

Answer 6

• Study with elderly women and found that they showed more masking and blends
• Sagging of facial muscles (slow sign vehicles) gave impression of permanent emotional state

Question 7

Decoding Elderly Facial Expression

Answer 7

• Hard for untrained observers to accurately decode elderly facial expressions
• Observers see sadness when elderly reports anger
• People are best at decoding age - matched peers

Question 8

Decoding elderly facial expression of emotion

Answer 8

• Young, middle aged, and older healthy adults asked to pose facial expressions
• Panel of young, middle, and older raters had to judge which expression was being posed
• Accuracy in judging expression was lowest when encoder was an older adult

Question 9

Elderly decoding of facial expressions

Answer 9

• elderly perform significantly worse than younger adults on decoding facial expressions of emotions
• They perform as well when decoding emotion front he voice
• Elderly with Alzheimer’s have more problems decoding facial expressions of emotion than healthy or psychiatric outpatient elderly
• Peak performance in the ability to identify facial expressions of emotion is in middle age. Children and older adults perform the poorest
• Fear, sadness, anger, and happiness were hardest for the elderly to decode

Question 10

Elderly gaze at facial expressions of emotion

Answer 10

Older adults looked less frequently and for shorter periods of time at angry faces and somewhat longer at happy faces than younger adults

Question 11

Brain activation for decoding age matched peers

Answer 11

Brain activation is highest when elderly (and young) decode faces of other elderly (or young) faces, with the exception of angry faces

Question 12

Elderly decoding facial expression and health outcomes

Answer 12

• Facial expressiveness of physical therapists
• Especially smiling
• Postitively associated with improvements over time in: Mobility
  Performing activities of daily living
  Decrease in confusion
• Facial expressiveness conveys empathy

Question 13

Elderly encoding space

Answer 13

• Dyads interacting in public are closest for young children and old people and farthest for middle aged
• Dyads in shipping malls: closes distance in pre school and senior citizen pairs
• When approaching a friend, elderly women use personal space, young women use intimate space
• Between age 56-94, older age is associated with a preference for closer space except among those with limited mobility who prefer more space

Question 14

Possible reason for decreases in space

Answer 14

• Sensory problems
• Social isolation
• Dependency

Question 15

Elderly decoding of space

Answer 15

• Elderly females perform better on tasks when they can sit close to another person - opposite is true form college students
• Elderly females find closeness enjoyable
• People tolerate closeness more when being invaded by someone of the same age

Question 16

Encoding touch

Answer 16

• Overall levels of touch do not differ from the general adult population
• More same-sex touching however

Question 17

Decoding touch

Answer 17

• Elderly subjects dislike certain types of touch (e.g. putting arm around them) but find others acceptable (e.g. hand on arm)
• Touch from a male nurse was seen as very disagreeable
• Touch from female nurse was rated as more acceptable

Question 18

Encoding gaze

Answer 18

• Confederates in a study stand in the doorway of a post office and gaze at people as they entered. Youngest and oldest were most likely to return gaze
• Another study did the same thing at a shopping mall
• Mean duration of gaze (18-30) - 2.44, (31-55) - 1.23, (56 ->) - 2.36

Question 19

Encoding gaze to manage mood

Answer 19

• Young adults demonstrate mood-congruent gaze, looking more at positive faces when in a good mood and negative faces when in a bad mood
• Older adults demonstrate mood- incongruent positive gaze, looking toward positive and away from negative faces when in a bad mood
• This finding suggest that in older adults, gaze does not reflect mood, but rather is used to regulate it.

Question 20

Decoding gaze

Answer 20

• Elderly are less likely to decode direct gaze as a sign of honesty or gaze aversion as a sign of dishonesty compared to young adults
• The ability to detect subtle differences in gaze aversion decreases with age

Question 21

Conclusions

Answer 21

• Apparent return to “child like” patterns of nonverbal behavior
• Physiological changes in encoding and decoding apparatus may contribute to changes, as well as psychological and social changes