Abstract
This study investigated the differences in emotional facial expressivity between people with aphasia (PWA) and control participants during emotional discourse tasks. Participants consisted of 26 PWA and 26 control participants from Aphasia Talk Bank who retold a stroke or illness story and an important life event story, totaling 104 video files. Undergraduate research assistants were trained to code emotional facial expressions according to valence, intensity, and duration utilizing a modified Facial Expression Coding System (FACES; Kring & Sloan, 1991). Dependent variables included positive frequency, negative frequency, positive intensity, and negative intensity. Results from this study demonstrate that female participants used more positive facial expressions compared to men. For intensity, female PWA participants produce less intense positive facial expressions compared to female control participants and control participants produce more negatively intense facial expressions compared to PWA participants. Lastly, no correlation was found between severity of aphasia and emotional facial expressivity. These findings suggest that PWA allocate a larger amount of attentional energy towards language production, resulting in less intense positive and negative facial expressions.
Degree
MS
College and Department
David O. McKay School of Education; Communication Disorders
Rights
https://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/
BYU ScholarsArchive Citation
Houghton, Chloe K., "Comparing Emotional Facial Expressions Produced During Personal Narrative Discourse by People With and Without Aphasia" (2025). Theses and Dissertations. 10873.
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/10873
Date Submitted
2025-06-03
Document Type
Thesis
Handle
http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/etd13709
Keywords
aphasia, emotional facial expressions, facial coding
Language
english