Open AccessFacial emotion mimicry in older adults with and without cognitive impairments due to Alzheimer's disease
Author(s) -
Justyna Gerłowska,
Krzysztof Dmitruk,
Konrad Rejdak
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
aims neuroscience
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.257
H-Index - 12
eISSN - 2373-7972
pISSN - 2373-8006
DOI - 10.3934/neuroscience.2021012
Subject(s) - facial expression , psychology , emotional expression , mimicry , cognition , expression (computer science) , audiology , disease , developmental psychology , affect (linguistics) , medicine , neuroscience , communication , ecology , computer science , biology , programming language
Facial expression of humans is one of the main channels of everyday communication. The reported research work investigated communication regarding the pattern of emotional expression of healthy older adults and with mild cognitive impairments (MCI) or Alzheimer's disease (AD). It focuses on mimicking of displayed emotional facial expression on a sample of 25 older adults (healthy, MCI and AD patients). The adequacy of the patients' individual facial expressions in six basic emotions was measured with the Kinect 3D recording of the participants' facial expressions and compared to their own typical emotional facial expressions. The reactions were triggered by mimicking 49 still pictures of emotional facial expressions. No statistically significant differences in terms of frequency nor adequacy of emotional facial expression were reported in healthy and MCI groups. Unique patterns of emotional expressions have been observed in the AD group. Further investigating the pattern of older adults' facial expression may decrease the misunderstandings and increase the quality of life of the patients.