University of Twente Student Theses
Prosodie in een therapeutisch gesprek : prosodische ontwikkelingen in een interventie tegen depressie bij ouderen
Zijlstra, J. (2015) Prosodie in een therapeutisch gesprek : prosodische ontwikkelingen in een interventie tegen depressie bij ouderen.
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| Abstract: | Introduction: Literature makes a case for prosody possibly being an accessible method of measurement for (seriousness of) depression in therapeutic consultations. It might circumvent certain difficulties associated with measuring depression in older populations. However, present studies often omit analyses of prosody within a consultation. They focus instead on the averaged scores of prosodic features in the consultation. This research aims to find out if that is the right thing to do. Method: Recordings of the five conversations with a 98 year old female participant of the intervention Dierbare herinneringen were used. Firstly a comparison was made between the averaged prosodic variables of the first and the last (usable) conversation was made. Secondly each conversation was split in a start, middle and end and variables were compared between these parts. The expectation was that these prosodic variables would change during the intervention to prosodic speech less characterisctic of depression. For this four variables were used, because of the correlation to depression literature attributed to them. These were: pitch, variation in pitch, duration of breaks in speaking and ratio of breaks in speaking to actual speaking. Results: Results showed no significant differences between the averaged variables of the first and the last usable conversation. When checking in more detail and comparing the parts of the conversations, two significant differences arose from the last conversation. The variation in pitch decreased from the start to the middle of the conversation and the duration of the breaks in speaking increased at the end of the conversation as opposed to the middle part. Discussion: These results showed no overwhelming evidence to using prosody to recognize depression. This is in part to the much larger amount of variables that did not change. What it does do is suggest that more research is needed to rescind or confirm prosody as a means to recognize (seriousness of) depression. Following research should focus on getting a larger research sample, going into more detail and validating depression as a cause. |
| Item Type: | Essay (Bachelor) |
| Faculty: | BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences |
| Subject: | 77 psychology |
| Programme: | Psychology BSc (56604) |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/66888 |
| Export this item as: | BibTeX EndNote HTML Citation Reference Manager |
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