Abstract
Nonverbal and verbal responsiveness during videotaped interviews was studied in patients with major depression, Parkinson's disease (PD) and healthy controls (n = 10 each). For this purpose four experienced interviewers performed a semi-structured interview about holiday and cultural activities with patients and healthy controls. Two trained raters analysed the subject response to smiling and speech production of the interviewer during the first three minutes of interaction by means of the lag sequential analysis technique. Smiling was measured according to a facial action coding system, and talking was registered every time a conversational partner articulated any noticeable noise - with or without semantic content - during a time interval. In interviews with depressed patients and PD patients, the frequency of smiling in both interactants, patients and trained interviewers, was significantly lower than in interviews with controls. The smiling reactivity of the patient groups, however, was normal and did not differ from healthy controls. With regard to the frequency oftalking, no difference was found between patients and control subjects. The speech responsiveness, however, was significantly delayed in PD patients, and even in their interviewers, whereas it was normal in interviews with depressive subjects and healthy controls. In conclusion, this study revealed that smiling and talking responsiveness was normal in patients with major depression. During interviews with depressive and PD patients the frequency of smiling was reduced in both interactants. In interviews with PD patients, the talking reactivity was delayed in patients and trained interviewers. We assume that the delayed speech response may result from PD-typical impairment in initiation of intentional movements.
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