Gender Differences in Family Dinnertime Conversations

Eating Alone and Cognitive Decline in Korean Older Adults: A 3-Year Prospective Study

BACKGROUND

Eating alone is a critical factor in nutritional risk screening among older adults. We investigated whether changes in eating status (eating alone or with others) in late-life affected cognitive decline in community-dwelling older adults.

METHODS

We used data from the Survey of the Living Conditions and Welfare Needs of Korean Older Persons. Nutritional risk, including eating status, was assessed using seven questions from the Nutrition Screening Initiative checklist, and cognitive function was measured using the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). On the basis of changes in eating status between baseline (2008) and the 3-year follow-up (2011), the subjects were divided into four groups: group 1 (eating with others at both visits), group 2 (eating alone in 2008 and eating with others in 2011), group 3 (eating with others in 2008 and eating alone in 2011), and group 4 (eating alone at both visits). Generalized linear models were used to compare the changes in MMSE scores over the 3-year period among the four groups.

RESULTS

Among older women, group 2 had the least decline in MMSE scores (-0.55±0.46), whereas group 3 had the greatest decline (-1.76±0.37) (p=0.034). We observed no difference in the change in MMSE scores among the four eating groups in older men.

CONCLUSION

Deprivation of mealtime partners in late life enhanced cognitive decline compared with gaining mealtime partners. Eating alone may be a risk factor for cognitive impairment; thus, meal programs reinforcing social integration might help preserve cognitive function.

Individual and socioenvironmental differences in autobiographical emotional appraisal of preschoolers

Emotions are essential processes for integrating events into autobiographical memory. Different children react differently to the same event. The process through which these different responses are generated from subjective evaluations of an event is called emotional appraisal. The main purpose of this study was to analyze the variations in the emotional appraisal of autobiographical events of 4- and 5-year-old children from homes with different socioenvironmental conditions. We compared preschoolers' emotional appraisal responses with those of their families. The emotional accuracy of the preschoolers was found to differ according to the different socioenvironmental conditions of their homes. Greater appraisal accuracy was observed in the favorable condition, and it was greater for emotional events than for neutral events. Appraisal accuracy also differed with age, with 5-year-olds showing greater appraisal accuracy than 4-year-olds. Therefore, the emotional appraisal of these events may also be affected by age and valence when attributing emotions to personal experiences.

Narrative characteristics of autobiographical memory predict expectations of narrator gender

Gender differences in autobiographical memory have been documented in various domains. The current study attempts to sharpen an understanding of extant gender differences in autobiographical memory by considering listener expectations, contributing to a sociocultural model. Across three studies (a pilot and two separate data collections) a narrative database was created. Narratives were coded for variables that have been shown to differ by gender, including emotion, connectedness to others, factual and interpretive elaboration, and thematic coherence. Participants read narratives and assessed if the narrator was male or female, indicating their confidence. In the pilot study and study 1, narrative features consistently predicted participant's assessments of narrator gender in two separate methods using the same narratives. In study 2, new narratives were used, showing replicability of the method and avoiding potential confounds of naturally occurring differences in study 1 and pilot data. More emotion words predicted higher likelihood of assessing a female narrator. Results support the use of such a methodology as an innovative way to examine gender-based listener expectations in autobiographical memory. They can be used for further theorising about the source of gender differences in this domain of memory that represents a combination of cognitive and social processes.

Partner Perceptions of Conversations with Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Pragmatic difficulties resulting in problems with reciprocal conversation are widely studied in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). There is some consensus on the conversation differences between individuals with autism compared to neurotypical groups and groups with other developmental delays. There is little information on whether conversation partners (neurotypical or with ASD) of individuals with ASD find these differences problematic. The results indicate that behaviors reported to be the most problematic were not necessarily behaviors commonly addressed in research. Further, some conversational capacities that have received less research focus were perceived as more problematic. Although conversation partners who had ASD themselves reported the frequency of behaviors similarly to the neurotypical group, they did not find the behaviors as problematic.

The effects of enactment on communicative competence in aphasic casual conversation: a functional linguistic perspective

BACKGROUND

Previous research has shown that speakers with aphasia rely on enactment more often than non-brain-damaged language users. Several studies have been conducted to explain this observed increase, demonstrating that spoken language containing enactment is easier to produce and is more engaging to the conversation partner. This paper describes the effects of the occurrence of enactment in casual conversation involving individuals with aphasia on its level of conversational assertiveness.

AIMS

To evaluate whether and to what extent the occurrence of enactment in speech of individuals with aphasia contributes to its conversational assertiveness.

METHODS & PROCEDURES

Conversations between a speaker with aphasia and his wife (drawn from AphasiaBank) were analysed in several steps. First, the transcripts were divided into moves, and all moves were coded according to the systemic functional linguistics (SFL) framework. Next, all moves were labelled in terms of their level of conversational assertiveness, as defined in the previous literature. Finally, all enactments were identified and their level of conversational assertiveness was compared with that of non-enactments.

OUTCOMES & RESULTS

Throughout their conversations, the non-brain-damaged speaker was more assertive than the speaker with aphasia. However, the speaker with aphasia produced more enactments than the non-brain-damaged speaker. The moves of the speaker with aphasia containing enactment were more assertive than those without enactment.

CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS

The use of enactment in the conversations under study positively affected the level of conversational assertiveness of the speaker with aphasia, a competence that is important for speakers with aphasia because it contributes to their floor time, chances to be heard seriously and degree of control over the conversation topic.

Functions of Parental Intergenerational Narratives Told by Young People

Family stories help shape identity and provide a foundation for navigating life events during adolescence and early adulthood. However, little research examines the types of stories passed onto adolescents and emerging adults, the extent to which these stories are retained and accessible, and the potentially influential parental- and self-identity content constructed in telling these stories. Across three samples, we investigate the accessibility and functions of intergenerational narratives that adolescents and emerging adults know of their parents. By examining adolescents' open-ended intergenerational stories, emerging adults' intergenerational stories of parents' transgression and proud moments, and emerging adults' intergenerational stories of parents' self-defining moments, we systematically describe the functions of various intergenerational stories during adolescence and early adulthood, when identity is in formation. We found that adolescents and emerging adults can readily recount intergenerational stories from parents, and that many of these stories serve to build relationships with the parent, provide insights about parents, provide insights about self, and transmit life lessons. The specific findings by narrative topic and by gender of both participant and parent are discussed.