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Biomedical subjects

M Alpert

Publications and source records attributed to M Alpert.

126 records · Page 7Linked to original sources
PubMedDate not supplied

A semantic analysis of the various ways that the terms "affect," "emotion," and "mood" are used.

A survey of authoritative psychiatric texts reveals that the terms "affect," "emotion," and "mood" are employed inconsistently. The authors consider some of the meanings these terms have and suggest that feeling states be defined in terms of their duration, whether they are subjective and/or objective, the role of cognition, and the phenomenological level. The study of the patient's facial expression and vocal acoustics offers empirical support for these distinctions. For example, flat affect can be differentiated from depression, and inappropriate affect appears not related to affects, but rather emotions. It then becomes possible to examine clinically important interactions among these processes.

Affect↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Parameters of emotional processing in neuropsychiatric disorders: conceptual issues and a battery of tests.

Components of emotional processing were examined in psychiatric and neurological populations: communication channel (face/voice), processing mode (expression/perception), and emotional valence (positive/negative). These were assessed with an experimental affect battery which was administered to schizophrenic, unipolar depressive, right-brain-damaged, Parkinson's disease, and normal control right-handed adults. For expression, subjects were taped while producing facial and vocal emotional expressions. Judges rated the expressions for accuracy and intensity. For perception, subjects were asked to identify and discriminate facial and vocal emotions. Using correlational techniques, relationships between facial and vocal channels and between expressive and perceptual modes were explored. The test battery has good psychometric properties and discriminates among diagnostic groups.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Spontaneous expression of facial emotion in schizophrenic and right-brain-damaged patients.

The primary neuropsychological theories of schizophrenia have emphasized disturbed dominant hemisphere functioning, although schizophrenics (SZs), particularly those with flat affect, may have deficits resembling those of patients with damage to their right hemisphere. SZs, right-brain-damaged patients (RBDs), and normal controls (NCs) were videotaped while talking about a pleasant and an unpleasant experience. Raters viewed the video recordings of facial activity with the audio portion turned off and assessed the intensity of emotion, the amount of positive emotion, and the amount of negative emotion. Compared to controls, both patient groups were judged as less expressive and as displaying more negative than positive emotion. In particular, the patients seemed to have difficulty with the expression of positive feelings. For the SZ group, these findings may be related to anhedonia or to poor social functioning, which are often features of the illness. The findings for the RBD group are contrary to previous studies which have suggested that the right hemisphere is specialized for negative emotion.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

The components and neuroanatomic bases of prosody.

Following a discussion of the various aspects and types of prosody, the literature relevant to its neuroanatomy and neuropsychology in normal, brain-injured, and psychiatric populations is reviewed. Evidence linking neurophysiologic mechanisms with components of prosody is presented.

Affect↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Interpersonal communication in the context of dementia.

The assessment of dementia draws, primarily, on measures of memory and language. However, dementia also affects interpersonal and social functioning. Therefore, objective assessment of interpersonal interaction may provide relevant and sensitive measures of the severity and type of dementia. We examined the vocal acoustics and interpersonal interactions of a group of patients with Parkinson's disease and mild to moderate dementia. Objective measures of performance during a semistructured interview correlated with clinical ratings made independently by a neurologist. Our findings indicate that dementia affects interpersonal abilities in specific ways that can be objectively measured using computer analyses of speech patterns.

Aged↗