Emotional expression of high school students with visual impairments and their typically developing peers

Abstract

Emotions are adaptive reaction to events from the environment and they represent the central part of every person's life. Willing emotional expression influences people from the environment according to our expectations if they recognize our emotions. Studies on expressing emotions in persons with visual impairments indicate the existence of the same type of spontaneous emotional expressions as in typically developing population. Also, these studies point to difficulties in presenting willing emotional expressions. The aim of this research was to determine the difference in emotional expression between high school students with visual impairments and their typically developing peers. The sample consisted of 33 students with visual impairments and the same number of students with no developmental disabilities. Emotional states simulation scenario by Friedman et al. was used in this research. Emotional expression was assessed with regard to the level of success in simulating seven emotions (happiness, sadness, anger, disgust, surprise, fear, and neutral state). The participants' task was to simulate the given emotional states in three structured situations (uttering two sentences and a series of vowels). The simulation of emotions was recorded. On the basis of video recordings, three independent assessors measured the success in simulating emotions on a nine-point scale. By analyzing the obtained results, a statistically significant difference in emotional expression was determined between the participants with visual impairments and their peers with no developmental disabilities (F(1)=3.692; p=0.05).Arithmetic mean differences are statistically significant for simulating disgust (p=0.002) and surprise (p=0.01). In the group of participants with visual impairments, gender was a significant factor in simulating the emotional state of happiness (p=0.024), while type of school was a significant factor in simulating sadness (p=0.027).

Emocije su adaptivna reakcija na zbivanja u okolini i predstavljaju centralni deo života svake osobe. Voljna emocionalna ekspresija utiče na osobe iz okruženja u skladu sa našim očekivanjima ukoliko one prepoznaju naše emocije. Studije koje su se bavile proučavanjem izražavanja emocija kod osoba sa oštećenjem vida ukazuju na postojanje iste vrste spontanih emocionalnih izraza kao i kod osoba tipičnog razvoja, kao i na teškoće u prezentovanju voljnih emocionalnih izraza. Cilj istraživanja je utvrđivanje razlika u emocionalnoj ekspresivnosti između srednjoškolaca sa oštećenjem vida i njihovih vršnjaka tipičnog razvoja. Uzorak su činila 33 učenika sa oštećenjem vida i isto toliko učenika bez smetnji u razvoju. U istraživanju je korišćen Scenario simuliranja emocionalnih stanja Fridmana i saradnika. Emocionalna ekspresivnost je procenjivana na osnovu stepena uspešnosti simuliranja sedam emocija (sreća, tuga, bes, gađenje, iznenađenje, strah i neutralno stanje). Zadatak ispitanika bio je da u tri strukturirane situacije (izgovaranje dve rečenice i niza samoglasnika) simuliraju zadata emotivna stanja. Simuliranje emocija je snimano. Na osnovu video snimaka, tri nezavisna procenjivača su vrednovala uspešnost simuliranja emocija na devetostepenoj skali. Analizom dobijenih rezultata utvrđeno je postojanje statistički značajne razlike u emocionalnoj ekspresivnosti između ispitanika sa oštećenjem vida i vršnjaka bez razvojnih smetnji (F(1)=3,692; p=0,05). Razlike između aritmetičkih sredina statistički su značajne za simuliranje gađenja (p=0,002) i iznenađenja (p=0,01). Ugrupi ispitanika sa oštećenjem vida pol se pokazao kao značajan činilac simuliranja emotivnog stanja sreće (p=0,024), a tip škole simuliranja tuge (p=0,027).