Western Washington University, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Bellingham, WA, USA.
Int J Lang Commun Disord. 2019 May;54(3):377-389. doi: 10.1111/1460-6984.12443. Epub 2018 Nov 15.
Although long-term social challenges following traumatic brain injury (TBI) are well documented, the challenges of establishing new relationships following TBI are less understood.
To examine how the type of non-verbal cues produced by an unfamiliar communication partner impacts feelings of relationship closeness by people with and without TBI.
METHODS & PROCEDURES: In this quasi-experimental comparative mixed-group design, participants included 12 male heterosexual adults with moderate/severe TBI and 10 typical comparison peers. An adaptation of the Relationship Closeness Induction Task (RCIT), a 29-item questionnaire, was completed by all participants to induce relationship closeness through reciprocal self-disclosure during conversation. Participants completed the RCIT three separate times in counterbalanced order. Conversational partners for the RCIT were three female actors trained to convey similar verbal answers to the RCIT questions, but to produce different non-verbal cues: solicitation (i.e., flirting), neutral and rejecting. Following each conversation, the participants completed a 10-item Likert-type questionnaire about the experience.
OUTCOMES & RESULTS: Between- and within-group non-parametric statistical analysis of Likert questions showed non-significant differences between the two participant groups such that both groups consistently rated the female actor who used flirting non-verbal cues higher than the actor who used rejecting non-verbal cues.
CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS: These results suggest a small sample of heterosexual males with TBI interpret non-verbal relationship cues in real-time conversations with unfamiliar partners as well as comparison peers. Clinical implications include the need to consider real-time conversation in assessment and treatment planning for social communication goals related to cognitive-communication impairment.
尽管创伤性脑损伤（TBI）后长期存在社会挑战已得到充分记录，但 TBI 后建立新关系的挑战却鲜为人知。
研究陌生交流伙伴所产生的非言语线索类型如何影响 TBI 患者和非 TBI 患者对关系亲密感的感受。
在这项准实验性比较混合组设计中，参与者包括 12 名患有中度/重度 TBI 的男性异性恋成年人和 10 名典型的对照组同龄人。所有参与者都完成了关系亲密感诱导任务（RCIT）的改编版，这是一个包含 29 个项目的问卷，通过对话中的相互自我披露来诱导关系亲密感。参与者以平衡的顺序分三次完成 RCIT。RCIT 的对话伙伴是三位经过训练的女性演员，她们被要求对 RCIT 问题给出相似的口头回答，但要表现出不同的非言语线索：请求（即，调情）、中性和拒绝。每次对话后，参与者都要完成一份包含 10 个项目的李克特量表问卷，以评估体验。
对李克特问题的组间和组内非参数统计分析显示，两组参与者之间没有显著差异，即两组参与者都一致地对使用调情非言语线索的女性演员的评价高于使用拒绝非言语线索的演员。这些结果表明，一小部分患有 TBI 的异性恋男性能够实时理解与陌生伙伴进行对话时的非言语关系线索，就像对照组同龄人一样。这一发现具有重要的临床意义，提示我们在评估和治疗与认知沟通障碍相关的社交沟通目标时，需要考虑实时对话。
