The effect of ergonomic intervention on neck/shoulder and low back pain

The aim of this study was to examine the effect of two types of ergonomic intervention on pain and pain-related disability in the neck/shoulder and low back regions. A cohort of 492 subjects of various occupations with non-specific neck/shoulder or low back pain was followed over a five to six year period. The study subjects were classified into four intervention groups: no ergonomic intervention, educational worksite intervention, workplace intervention, and combined workplace and educational worksite intervention. The group with no ergonomic intervention was used as the reference group. The changes in pain intensity and pain-related disability from baseline to follow-up in each of the three groups with intervention were compared to the changes in the reference group. During the follow-up, 39% of the subjects had received ergonomic intervention. The average change in pain intensity and pain-related disability was smaller in the educational worksite intervention group than in the reference group. The average reduction of pain intensity and pain-related disability did not differ between the two other intervention groups and the reference group. Thus, for subjects still at work, ergonomic intervention seemed to be ineffective for reducing neck/shoulder and low back pain and pain-related disability.     

The face of repressive coping: Social context and the display of hostile expressions and social smiles

The present study examined the nonverbal correlates of repressive coping, extending previous research in two ways: (1) participants' nonverbal behaviors were observed in either of two conditions that differed with respect to the salience of public identity; (2) an anatomically-based facial coding system was used to assess participants' emotion expressions and symbolic communication behaviors. Sixty female undergraduates, classified as repressive, low-anxious, or high-anxious, were videotaped during the preparation and delivery of a self-disclosing speech. During both the preparation and delivery, the salience of participants' public identities was either minimized (low-salience condition) or maximized (high-salience condition). Repressors and nonrepressors exhibited similar frequencies of hostile facial expressions. Repressors differed from nonrepressors by their frequent expressions of social smiles and conversational illustrators when their public selves were most salient. These findings suggest that certain symbolic communication behaviors may be nonverbal analogues of cognitive coping processes, and they support the utility of including expressive behaviors in conceptualizations of emotion-focused coping.     

Spontaneous Facial Expressions Reveal New Action Units for the Sad Experiences

Facial expressions related to sadness are a universal signal of nonverbal communication. Although results of many psychology studies have shown that drooping of the lip corners, raising of the chin, and oblique eyebrow movements (a combination of inner brow raising and brow lowering) express sadness, no report has described a study elucidating facial expression characteristics under well-controlled circumstances with people actually experiencing the emotion of sadness itself. Therefore, spontaneous facial expressions associated with sadness remain unclear. We conducted this study to accumulate important findings related to spontaneous facial expressions of sadness. We recorded the spontaneous facial expressions of a group of participants as they experienced sadness during an emotion-elicitation task. This task required a participant to recall neutral and sad memories while listening to music. We subsequently conducted a detailed analysis of their sad and neutral expressions using the Facial Action Coding System. The prototypical facial expressions of sadness in earlier studies were not observed when people experienced sadness as an internal state under non-social circumstances. By contrast, they expressed tension around the mouth, which might function as a form of suppression. Furthermore, results show that parts of these facial actions are not only related to sad experiences but also to other emotional experiences such as disgust, fear, anger, and happiness. This study revealed the possibility that new facial expressions contribute to the experience of sadness as an internal state.     

Aging and the Effects of Facial and Prosodic Cues on Emotional Intensity Ratings and Memory Reconstructions

Young (M = 23 years) and older (M = 77 years) adults' interpretation and memory for the emotional content of spoken discourse was examined in an experiment using short, videotaped scenes of two young actresses talking to each other about emotionally-laden events. Emotional nonverbal information (prosody or facial expressions) was conveyed at the end of each scene at low, medium, and high intensities. Nonverbal information indicating anger, happiness, or fear, conflicted with the verbal information. Older adults' ability to differentiate levels of emotional intensity was not as strong (for happiness and anger) compared to younger adults. An incidental memory task revealed that older adults, more often than younger adults, reconstruct what people state verbally to coincide with the meaning of the nonverbal content, if the nonverbal content is conveyed through facial expressions. A second experiment with older participants showed that the high level of memory reconstructions favoring the nonverbal interpretation was maintained when the ages of the participants and actresses were matched, and when the nonverbal content was conveyed both through prosody and facial expressions.     

A cognitive-behavioral plus exercise intervention for older adults with chronic back pain: race/ethnicity effect?

This pilot study examined the feasibility and potential efficacy of a self-management program for seniors with chronic back pain and assessed for possible race/ethnicity differences in program impact. Sixty-nine seniors (24 African Americans, 25 Hispanics, and 20 non-Hispanic Whites) enrolled in the 8-wk community-based program. Efficacy outcomes included pain-related disability as measured by the Roland Morris Disability Questionnaire (RMDQ), pain intensity, pain self-efficacy, depressive symptoms, social activity, and functional status. Eighty percent of enrollees completed the program. Clinically important decreases in RMDQ scores were found for non-Hispanic White (adjusted change score = -3.53), African American (-3.89), and Hispanic (-8.45) participants. Improvements in all other outcomes were observed, but only for Hispanic participants. Results confirm that implementation of the protocol in urban senior centers is feasible, and the program shows potential efficacy. The race/ethnicity differences observed in the current study merit further investigation.     

Effects of Social Anxiety on Nonverbal Accuracy and Response Time I: Facial Expressions

Cognitive models of social anxiety provide a basis for predicting that the ability to process nonverbal information accurately and quickly should be impaired during the experience of state anxiety. To test this hypothesis, we assigned participants to threatening and non-threatening conditions and asked them to label the emotions expressed in a series of faces. It was predicted that social anxiety would be positively associated with errors and response times in threatening conditions, but not in a non-threatening condition. It was also predicted that high social anxiety would be associated with more errors and longer response times when identifying similar expressions such as sadness, anger, and fear. The results indicate that social anxiety was not associated with errors in identifying facial expressions of emotion, regardless of the level of state anxiety experienced. However, social anxiety scores were found to be significantly related to response times to identify facial expressions, but the relationship varied depending on the level of state anxiety experienced. Methodological and theoretical implications of using response time data when assessing nonverbal ability are discussed.     

The Painful Truth: Interpretation of Facial Expressions of Pain in Older Adults

The purpose of this study was to determine whether it is more difficult to decode facial expressions of pain in older than in younger adults. The facial expressions of 10 younger and 10 older chronic pain patients undergoing a painful diagnostic test were viewed on videotape by untrained judges. Judges estimated the severity of pain being experienced by the patients. Ratings made of the older faces during painful moments described more pain, and appeared more accurate, than those made of younger faces. Judges also reported seeing more pain in posed, masked, and baseline facial expressions in the older adults. Age-related structural changes to the face were not responsible for this bias. This suggests that judges were predisposed to see pain in the faces of the older patients, and undermines the assumption that their ratings of pain in the painful moment segments were accurate.     

Healthcare Providers’ Nonverbal Behavior can Lead Patients to Show Their Pain More Accurately: An Analogue Study

Accurate pain assessment is a joint function of both the judge perceiving correct (valid) cues of pain and targets displaying valid indicators of pain. The present research examined whether the judgeability of pain expressions could be altered by manipulating the nonverbal supportiveness of a videotaped physician who guided targets through an experimentally induced pain experience in the laboratory. Ten-s video clips of these targets during their pain experience were viewed by 95 naïve judges who assessed each target’s pain on an 11-point numeric rating scale. In addition, the video clips were rated by independent coders on 9-point scales (focused, calm, tense, distressed, composed, fidgety, determined, bored, and nervous). Judges’ pain assessment accuracy was calculated by correlating their inferred pain rating for each target with targets’ self-reported pain. Pain targets assigned to interact with the nonverbally supportive physician displayed more valid impressions of their pain and judges had higher pain assessment accuracy when viewing these targets compared to targets assigned to interact with the nonverbally unsupportive physician. Interventions for caregivers and healthcare providers that emphasize the importance of nonverbal behavior when interacting with pain sufferers are discussed.     

Rapport expressed through nonverbal behavior

Family Medicine residents were videotaped in interviews with a new and a return-visit patient. Two coders recorded nonverbal behavior performed by the residents for two, one-minute segments of each interview. Categories of movement included: proxemic behaviors of distance, orientation, and trunk lean, and head, hand/arm, and leg/foot movement, facial expression, and direction of gaze.Each of the 36 video segments were rated by a group of psychiatric nurses using bipolar adjective scales assessing dimensions of rapport. Significant differences in nonverbal behavior were found between high and low rapport doctors. Physicians were rated more positively when they sat directly facing the patient, with uncrossed legs, and arms in symmetrical, side-by-side positions. High rapport doctors also engaged in moderate, but less extensive eye contact, with the patient than low rapport doctors. Discussion focuses on the impact of nonverbal behavior on physician-patient communication and the establishment of rapport.This research was supported in part by a grant from the Department of Health and Human Services.     

Emotional Transactions in the Paris Subway: Combining Naturalistic Videotaping,Objective Facial Coding and Sequential Analysis in the Study of Nonverbal Emotional Behavior

We report on what, to our knowledge, represents the first study of nonverbal emotional behavior in crowded public places combining naturalistic videotaping of situated activity, objective coding of facial movement, and sequential analysis of behavior. In the first part of the study we argue that passengers do not lose emotional sensitivity to physical contact as density (passengers per square meter) increases, which indicates that physical contact is experienced as a territorial intrusion regardless of crowdedness. In the second part of the study, we suggest that passengers resolve the emotions due to intrusive physical contacts through two interactional strategies involving facial movements usually interpreted as “expressions of emotions.” Since proxemic violations seem to represent a pervasive emotion elicitor, the protocol can be extended to other means of transportation and replicated in other locations. We conclude that the methodology provides an effective tool for theory-building in the study of nonverbal emotional behavior.     

The Effect of Social Presence on the Facial and Verbal Expression of Emotion and the Interrelationships Among Emotion Components

Women were videotaped while they spoke about a positive and a negative experience either in the presence of an experimenter or alone. They gave self-reports of their emotional experience, and the videotapes were rated for facial and verbal expression of emotion. Participants spoke less about their emotions when the experimenter (E) was present. When E was present, during positive disclosures they smiled more, but in negative disclosures they showed less negative and more positive expression. Facial behavior was only related to experienced emotion during positive disclosure when alone. Verbal behavior was related to experienced emotion for positive and negative disclosures when alone. These results show that verbal and nonverbal behaviors, and their relationship with emotional experience, depend on the type of emotion, the nature of the emotional event, and the social context.     

Cross-Cultural Judgments of Spontaneous Facial Expressions of Emotion

We report data concerning cross-cultural judgments of emotion in spontaneously produced facial expressions. Americans, Japanese, British, and International Students in the US reliably attributed emotions to the expressions of Olympic judo athletes at the end of a match for a medal, and at two times during the subsequent medal ceremonies. There were some observer culture differences in absolute attribution agreement rates, but high cross-cultural agreement in differences in attribution rates across expressions (relative agreement rates). Moreover, we operationalized signal clarity and demonstrated that it was associated with agreement rates similarly in all cultures. Finally, we obtained judgments of won-lost match outcomes and medal finish, and demonstrated that the emotion judgments were associated with accuracy in judgments of outcomes. These findings demonstrated that members of different cultures reliably judge spontaneously expressed emotions, and that across observer cultures, lower absolute agreement rates are related to noise produced by non-emotional facial behaviors. Also, the findings suggested that observers of different cultures utilize the same facial cues when judging emotions, and that the signal value of facial expressions is similar across cultures.     

Nonverbal behaviors as indices of arousal: Extension to the psychotherapy context

In an investigation guided by the premise that overt nonverbal indices may often be practical and valid indicators of arousal, Burgoon, Kelley, Newton, and Keeley-Dyreson (1989) found different nonverbal behaviors associated with arousal intensity and with positively and negatively valenced arousal. The current investigation extends that research to a new context, examining (1) the ability of a global measure of observed arousal and specific nonverbal indices of arousal intensity and valence to detect presumed nonlinear arousal changes during psychotherapy, (2) the differential impact of nonverbal indicators across phases of a therapy session, and (3) the relationship of nonverbal indicators to therapy outcome. Raters judged all-channel global arousal or specific kinesic and vocalic nonverbal behaviors during Focused Expressive Psychotherapy (FEP) sessions, during which high levels of negative arousal are evoked. Manifest global arousal, random movement/self-adaptors, and kinesic pleasantness conformed to hypothesized nonlinear patterns across time within therapy sessions. Nonverbal correlates of manifest global arousal varied across therapy phases. Moderate manifest arousal, especially random movement/self-adaptors and vocal tension, and high vocal expressiveness during the middle of the therapy work session were most predictive of patients' self-reported resolution at the end of therapy.Portions of this research were supported through grant no. MH-R01-39859 from the National Institute of Mental Health and were presented in an earlier version to the annual meeting of the Speech Communication Association, Chicago, November 1990.     

Low back pain disability and stay at work: contradiction or necessity?

The incidence of occupational diseases in the population is high and factors such as long working hours, poor posture, psychological and physical stress can contribute to its development. Among work-related musculoskeletal disorders, back pain has a high prevalence. The aim of the present study was to quantify and characterize pain complaints and to identify individuals with low back pain, in order to assess the degree of disability. Participated 226 employees of an institution of higher education. They answered a general questionnaire about location and quantification of pain complaints visual analog scale for pain and the Quebec Disability Questionnaire. Of all the workers, 69.60% had some type of musculoskeletal complaint; of those, 15.41% had low back pain. Considering workers who had back pain, 54.9% were female, 52.94% are under 30 years old and 43.14% between 1 and 5 years of work. As for the final score for the degree of disability, 41.17% had minimal disability and 37.25% moderate disability. The present study found large number of pain complaints and high prevalence of low back pain, resulting in individual's inability and difficulties in performing work activities.     

Nonverbal Decoding Skills and Relationship Well-Being in Adults

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relation between nonverbal decoding skills and relationship well-being. Sixty college students were administered tests of their abilities to identify the affective meanings in facial expressions and tones of voice. The students also completed self-report measures of relationship well-being and depression. Correlational analyses indicated that errors in decoding facial expressions and tones of voice were associated with less relationship well-being and greater depression. Hierarchical regression revealed that nonverbal decoding accuracy was significantly related to relationship well-being even after controlling for depression.     

Experimental study of assistant aids and new nursing method in nursing care work

This study seeks to evaluate the effect of regular and new nursing methods in nursing care work. Nursing care work often causes low back pain in nursing care worker. The principle of not lifting when transferring patients has been proposed as one way to prevent low back pain. This principle incorporates the use of the patient's strength and assistant aids. A sliding seats and transfer boards have been proposed as assistant aids for the transferring patients. It is necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of these assistant aids in preventing low back pain. Ten subjects performed two tasks in this experiment. Five were nursing experienced persons and five were the inexperienced. EMG results indicated that the new nursing method was less stressful than the methods. A questionnaire revealed that the new method was evaluated more highly than the regular method. Based on these results, we propose that a sliding seats and transfer boards be used in nursing care work.     

Age and Gender Differences in Decoding Basic and Non-basic Facial Expressions in Late Childhood and Early Adolescence

This study examined age and gender differences in decoding nonverbal cues in a school population of 606 (pre)adolescents (9–15 years). The focus was on differences in the perceived intensity of several emotions in both basic and non-basic facial expressions. Age differences were found in decoding low intensity and ambiguous faces, but not in basic expressions. Older adolescents indicated more negative meaning in these more subtle and complex facial cues. Girls attributed more anger to both basic and non-basic facial expressions and showed a general negative bias in decoding non-basic facial expressions compared to boys. Findings are interpreted in the light of the development of emotion regulation and the importance for developing relationships.

Decoding Basic and Non-basic Facial Expressions and Depressive Symptoms in Late Childhood and Adolescence

This study examined the relationship between decoding nonverbal cues and depressive symptoms in a general school population of 606 children and adolescents (9–15 years). The focus was on the perceived intensity of several emotions in both basic and non-basic facial expressions. The perceived intensities of anger and joy in low intensity facial expressions were related to depression. The higher the perceived intensity of anger the more depressed adolescents were, whereas the reversed effect was found for the perception of joy, but only in girls. These results suggest that the development of decoding biases in low intensity facial expressions may be useful for understanding the development of individual and gender differences in depression during adolescence.

Adult Perceptions of Positive and Negative Infant Emotional Expressions

Adults' perceptions provide information about the emotional meaning of infant facial expressions. This study asks whether similar facial movements influence adult perceptions of emotional intensity in both infant positive (smile) and negative (cry face) facial expressions. Ninety‐five college students rated a series of naturally occurring and digitally edited images of infant facial expressions. Naturally occurring smiles and cry faces involving the co‐occurrence of greater lip movement, mouth opening, and eye constriction, were rated as expressing stronger positive and negative emotion, respectively, than expressions without these 3 features. Ratings of digitally edited expressions indicated that eye constriction contributed to higher ratings of positive emotion in smiles (i.e., in Duchenne smiles) and greater eye constriction contributed to higher ratings of negative emotion in cry faces. Stronger mouth opening contributed to higher ratings of arousal in both smiles and cry faces. These findings indicate a set of similar facial movements are linked to perceptions of greater emotional intensity, whether the movements occur in positive or negative infant emotional expressions. This proposal is discussed with reference to discrete, componential, and dynamic systems theories of emotion.     

Factors contributing to work related low back pain among personal care workers in old age

This study aims to preliminary explore the work related and individual factors that contributed to the occurrence of low back pain (LBP) that affected work activities of Personal Care Workers (PCWs). A cross-sectional study was conducted to 36 PCWs in an old age home of Hong Kong. The study is divided into three parts: 1) a questionnaire to document the workload exposure factors and the musculoskeletal symptoms survey of the PCWs, 2) work posture evaluation; and 3) an evaluation of the physical fitness and lifting capacity of the PCWs. Univariate analyses were used to explore the risk factors associated with LBP that affected work activities. The results indicated that individual physical profile and lifting capacities did not contribute to occurrence of low back pain at work. For the work demand factors, the perceived physical demands in lifting and lowering heavy objects, awkward sustain neck and back postures, loading on the back, and perceived effort of cleaning task contributed to the occurrence of LBP. For the physical environment factors, thermal stress and improper ventilation were associated with the occurrence of LBP cases. For the individual factor, LBP cases were associated with workers' self perceived muscular effort, and perceived risk of mental illness in response to work requirements.