| Budget Amount *help |
¥2,000,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,000,000)
Fiscal Year 1997: ¥600,000 (Direct Cost: ¥600,000)
Fiscal Year 1996: ¥1,400,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,400,000)
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| Research Abstract |
Few studies have been done which investigated the communication of emotion through facial expressions among olders. We performed three studies to obtain the basic knowledge about the basic features of the communication of emotion among the old.
In the first sutdy, we asked 20 subjects aged 65 and older about the extent of expression of emotions such as happiness, sadness, anger, fear.disgust, surprise, and contempt. It was found that happiness was the most expressed emotion which was followed by fear, and sadness among female subjects. There were sex differences in happiness and contempt, that is, females reported to express happiness more than males and males reported to express contempt more than females.
In the second and third studies, we asked 25 subjects to pose the seven emotions described above and a neutral face and take their own pictures by photo and video camera. The photographs of each posed expressions were coded by the investigators using a coding system, MAX and rated by 30 college students along the seven emotion scales. What was found is that only 20 posed expressions among 175 were determined to signal pure emotions. The rest of expressions did not transmit any specific emotions or fuzzy signals. The ratings by the college students revealed that they could recognize happiness, sadness, anger, and surprise but could not recognized disgust, fear, and contempt.
Comparing the preceding studies about the expression of college students, the subjects in the present studies could pose less emotions. Further studies are needed to examine the reasons of the differences, which could be the change of muscles and nervous systems of the old with aging processes and the differences in the rules of expressions between generations.
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