台灣年輕人與年長者區辨臉部表情之年齡差異

Age-related Differences in Facial Expression Discrimination in Adults in Taiwan

過去許多的研究指出在高齡者辨識某些特定的臉部表情的能力，相較於年輕人有明顯下降的趨勢。本研究採用建置於台灣社會之臉孔資料庫，並發展五項臉部表情區辨作業，以探討台灣年輕人與年長者在表情區辨能力上之差異。五項表情區辨作業由簡單至複雜，分別探究年輕人與年長者區辨能力上可能有差異的表情以及透過作業間表現差異之比較，以探討可能造成差異的原因。據此，我們共執行兩項研究；研究一徵求年輕人為參與者並建立常模，研究二則徵求年長參與者，並與研究一的年輕人加以比較，以探討不同年齡層表情區辨能力是否有差異。惟受限於參與的時間與體力，年長參與者僅進行作業一至三。研究一的結果顯示年輕人的各表情間最容易區辨（如快樂與其他負向表情）與最難區辨（如生氣與厭惡）表情在五項作業大致相同，此一結果也符合先前研究的結論。研究二的結果顯示年長的參與者在區辨負向表情之間的表現較年輕人為差，除此之外，年長者在區辨正向的快樂表情與負向表情時及區辨中性表情與負向表情時，亦較年輕人為差；惟這些結果是否能視為支持年長者在辨識情緒時正向效果的證據，仍有待進一步的探討。綜合而言，本研究不但開發了一套適合台灣社會的臉孔表情區辨能力評量工具，更可以從研究的結果了解年輕人與年長者在區辨表情時的特性與差異；這些發現將可以進一步用來設計提升年長者區辨臉部表情的活動，以提升他們的社會生活品質。

Prior research has indicated that older adults have worse ability in identifying some specific facial expressions than younger adults. In this research, we adopted Taiwanese Face Database and developed five tasks. The tasks were designed to assess different aspects of discriminating facial expressions that may have implications for revealing differences between younger and older adults regarding their abilities to process facial expressions. Two studies were conducted: In Study 1, we collected young adults’performances on the five tasks to establish the norms for comparison. In Study 2, we collected performances of older adults and compared them with those of young adults. However, due to the time and physical constraints, older adults only participated in the first three tasks. Results of Study 1 showed that young adults were better at discriminating between positive and negative facial expressions (e.g., happy vs. other negative expressions) than discriminating between negative expressions (e.g., angry vs. disgusted). Results of Study 2 showed that in general, older adults discriminated negative facial expressions less well than younger adults did. In addition, older adults exhibited inferior performances when compared to younger adults in discriminating between happy and negative expressions, and discriminating between neutral and negative expressions. However, whether these findings can be construed as evidence to support the positivity effect among elderly people requires further investigation. In summary, the present research not only developed a tool for assessing abilities in discriminating facial expressions, but also found age differences in these abilities. The findings can potentially be used to design activities that may help older adults improve their abilities in discriminating facial expressions, and elevate the quality of their social lives.