COMM 415 1st edition Lecture 25 Outline of Last Lecture I. Animal Communication Outline of Current Lecture II. IntroductionIII. Vocal BehaviorIV. Facial BehaviorV. ProxemicsVI. TouchVII. GazeCurrent Lecture(25)Thursday, April 30, yNONVERBAL BEHAVIOR & THE ELDERLYI. IntroductionA. there is considerable variability in the encoding and decoding of nonverbal behavior among the elderly B. changes in paralanguage1. increased pitch for males 2. increase in jitter and shimmera) jitter: varying pitch of voice; produces rough soundb) shimmer: varying loudness of voice; produces shaky quality3. decreased speech rate4. increased disfluency comparable to that of elementary school children a) hesitationsb) speech errorsII. Vocal BehaviorA. encodingB. decodingC. encoding to the elderly by others1. young adults speak to the elderly with high vocal intensity and high pitch2. especially if they have minimal contact with elderly people 3. people speak more slowly to elderly vs. young adults D. decoding (by others)These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor’s lecture. GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes, not as a substitute.1. people can make gross judgments about a speaker’s age from his/her voice2. negative stereotypes are often associated with the voices of the elderly 3. the more slowly a person speaks, the older they are judged to beE. elderly decoding1. hearing problems especially fast speech and background noise2. can improve with enhanced intonation3. elderly do not perform as well as young adults on decoding emotion in the voice, even whencontrolling for hearing loss, working memory, and cognitive decline III. Facial BehaviorA. encoding1. studied elderly women and found that they showed more masking blends2. sagging facial muscles (slow sign vehicles) gave impression of permanent emotional state B. decoding1. hard for untrained observers to accurately decode elderly facial expressions 2. observers see sadness when elderly report anger 3. people are best at decoding age-matched peers C. elderly decoding1. young (21-39) 2. middle aged (40-59)3. older (60-81) 4. health adults asked to pose facial expressions5. a panel of young, middle, older raters and to judge which expression was being posed6. accuracy in judging expression was lowest when the encoder was an older adult 7. elderly perform significantly worse than younger adults on decoding facial expressions of emotion8. they perform as well when decoding emotion from the voice 9. Alzheimers have more problems decoding facial expressions of emotion than healthy or psychiatric outpatient elderly 10. peak performance in the ability to identify facial expressions of emotion is the middle age; children and older adults perform poorest11. fear, sadness, anger and happiness were hardest for the elderly to decode 12. older adults looked less frequently and for short amounts of time13. brain activation is highest when elderly (and young) decode faces of other elderly (or young)faces; with the exception of angry faces 14. facial expressiveness conveys empathyIV. ProxemicsA. encoding1. dyads interacting in public are closest for young children and old people and farthest for middle aged2. dyads in shopping malls: closest distance in preschool and senior citizen pairs 3. when approaching a friend, elderly women use personal space, young women use intimate space 4. between age 56-94, older age is associated with a preference for closer space except among those with limited mobility who prefer more space5. possible reasons for decreases in spacea) sensory problemsb) social isolationc) dependency B. elderly decoding1. elderly females perform better on tasks when they can sit close to another person—the opposite is true for college students2. elderly females find closeness enjoyable 3. people tolerate closeness more when being invaded by someone of the same age V. TouchA. encoding1. overall levels of touch do not differ from the general adult population2. more same-sex touching however B. elderly decoding1. elderly subjects dislike certain types of touch but find others acceptable2. touch from male nurse was seen as very disagreeable 3. touch from female nurse was rate more acceptable VI. GazeA. encoding 1. had confederates stand in the doorway of a post office and gaze at people as they entered2. youngest (<15) and oldest (>50) were most likely to return gaze3. mean duration of gazea) 18-30; 2.44 secondsb) 31-55; 1.23c) 56+; 2.364. younger adults demonstrate mood-congruent gaze, looking more at positive faces when in agood mood and at a negative face when in a bad mood= MOOD CONGRUENT 5. older adults demonstrate mood-incongruent positive gaze, looking toward positive and away from negative faces when in a bad mood=MOOD INCONGRUENT6. this finding suggests that in older adults, gaze does not reflect mood, but rather used to regulate it B. elderly decoding 1. elderly people are less likely to decode direct gaze as a sign of honesty or gaze aversion as a sign of dishonesty, compared to young adults2. the ability to detect subtle differences in gaze aversion decreases with