Date of Award

5-2017

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

College/School

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Department/Program

Psychology

Thesis Sponsor/Dissertation Chair/Project Chair

Ruth Propper

Committee Member

Jean Lengenfelder

Committee Member

Kenneth Sumner

Abstract

Approximately 1.5 million people suffer traumatic brain injury each year in the United States. Over 5% suffer from long-term disability or cognitive deficits, including loss of executive functions, reduced processing speed, and emotional processing deficits. While research exists examining facial affect recognition and emotional prosody deficits in individuals with traumatic brain injuries, less is known about the how these two emotional processing deficits relate to one another; whether age, education, or time since injury effect deficits; and how these specific deficits impact quality of life. This study conducted a secondary data analysis to examine the relationship between demographic variables and facial affect recognition and prosody deficits. This study also conducted a secondary data analysis investigating the relationship between facial affect recognition and prosody deficits. Additionally, a secondary data analysis was conducted to examine how quality of life in clinical populations with traumatic brain injury relates to deficits in both facial affect recognition and prosody. An analysis of demographic data, emotional processing, and quality of life was conducted using previously collected data from 19 individuals with moderate-to-severe traumatic brain injury, who were enrolled in an ongoing intervention study at the Kessler Foundation. Results showed a meaningful relationship between prosody deficits and years of education, but no relationship between facial affect recognition and prosody deficits. Future research should utilize quality of life measures that are more sensitive to socio-emotional aspects of quality of life.

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