青少年与成人不同情绪刺激调节效应的差异

旨在探究增强调节和减弱调节调节效应量的年龄差异。通过两个实验系统考察青少年和成人对不同情绪刺激使用不同调节策略时,调节效应的差异。实验一采用“情绪反应性—调节图片任务（REAR-I Task）”考察了35名青少年和35名成人情绪调节的效应量。实验二进一步对情绪图片的唤醒度进行分组（高唤醒/低唤醒）,考察了59名青少年和59名成人情绪调节的效应量。结果验证了研究假设：整体而言,对不同效价和唤醒度情绪刺激采用增强调节或减弱调节时,成人的调节效应量均大于青少年,对正性情绪的减弱调节方面尤为明显。     

Age-related differences in deception

Young and older participants judged the veracity of young and older speakers' opinions about topical issues. All participants found it easier to judge when an older adult was lying relative to a young adult, and older adults were worse than young adults at telling when speakers were telling the truth versus lying. Neither young nor older adults were advantaged when judging a speaker from the same age group. Overall, older adults were more transparent as liars and were worse at detecting lies, with older adults' worse emotion recognition fully mediating the relation between age group and lie detection failures.     

Age-related differences in irrelevant-speech effects

Three experiments examined age-related differences in irrelevant-speech effects. Younger and older adults were required to recall short prose texts or lists of semantically related words presented visually together with distractor speech. In all experiments, older adults made more semantically related intrusion errors from the irrelevant speech than younger adults. Results of a source memory test suggested that these age-related differences in interference are most likely due to both inhibitory deficits and source-monitoring problems. The results lend partial support to the inhibition deficit theory of cognitive aging.     

Age-related differences in the attentional white bear

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review - The cognitive aging literature suggests that aging populations exhibit impairments in the proactive inhibition of attention. Although proactive inhibition is...     

Age-related differences in the specificity of verbal encoding

A communication paradigm was used as an analogue to cued recall to separate age-related differences in encoding and retrieval. Younger and older adults (senders) generated a series of one-word clues that would enable other subjects (receivers) to generate a designated target word. Clue and target generation tasks, analogous to the encoding and retrieval components of cued recall, were conducted in the context of either a strong or a weak associate of the target. Clues generated by older senders were less effective than clues generated by younger senders in enabling receivers to generate targets, especially when clues or targets were generated in the context of a weak associate. A deficit among older receivers was also obtained, especially when a weak-rather than a strong-associate context word was given to the receiver. Older adults experience difficulty with encoding and retrieval tasks that require processing of context-specific information that is not part of the generic information typically associated with a stimulus.     

Age-related differences in the von Restorff isolation effect

When one item is made distinct from the other items in a list, memory for the distinctive item is improved, a finding known as the isolation or von Restorff effect (after von Restorff, 1933). Although demonstrated numerous times with younger adults and children, this effect has not been found with older adults (Cimbalo & Brink, 1982). In contrast to the earlier study, we obtained a significant von Restorff effect for both younger and older adults using a physical manipulation of font colour. The effect size for older adults was smaller than that obtained for younger adults, confirming a prediction of Naveh-Benjamin's (2000) associative deficit hypothesis, which attributes age-related differences in memory performance to older adults' reduced ability to form associations. The findings are consistent with related research in which older adults demonstrate similar—but smaller—benefits for distinctive information to those for younger adults.     

Age-related differences in the von restorff isolation effect

When one item is made distinct from the other items in a list, memory for the distinctive item is improved, a finding known as the isolation or von Restorff effect (after von Restorff, 1933). Although demonstrated numerous times with younger adults and children, this effect has not been found with older adults (Cimbalo & Brink, 1982). In contrast to the earlier study, we obtained a significant von Restorff effect for both younger and older adults using a physical manipulation of font colour. The effect size for older adults was smaller than that obtained for younger adults, confirming a prediction of Naveh-Benjamin's (2000) associative deficit hypothesis, which attributes age-related differences in memory performance to older adults' reduced ability to form associations. The findings are consistent with related research in which older adults demonstrate similar—but smaller—benefits for distinctive information to those for younger adults.     

Age-related differences in inference revision processing

In comparison to younger adults, older adults demonstrate deficiencies in cognitive and linguistic abilities. Such cognitive factors that decline with age include working memory capacity and inhibitory abilities. The purpose of the present investigation was to measure differences in time course processing of inference revision abilities, as well as working memory, as they exist relative to adult age differences. Fifteen neurologically intact older adults and 15 younger adults participated in this study. A cross-modal lexical priming paradigm was chosen as the measure of the inference revision task; the listening span task of Tompkins, Bloise, Timko, and Baumgaertner (1994) was selected as the measure of working memory. Both groups demonstrated normal priming effects. No age-related differences were found on the working memory measure. Age-related differences did emerge on inferencing abilities. A significant correlation emerged between the older group's performance on comprehending inference revisions and their working memory capacity. Generally, inhibitory abilities and working memory capacity appeared to adversely affect older participant's performance.     

Age-related differences in localized attentional interference

Attentional selection of an object in the visual field degrades processing of neighboring stimuli in young adults. A pair of experiments examined the effects of aging on such localized attentional interference. In Experiment 1, younger and older observers made speeded same-different judgments of target shapes that varied in spatial separation. Performance declined for both age groups as the distance between targets decreased, but an Age x Distance interaction indicated that the magnitude of this effect was larger for older adults. Experiment 2 ruled out sensory masking as an explanation for these findings. Results indicate that older observers experience losses in the ability to attend to multiple spatially proximal stimuli within the visual field.     

Age-related differences in timing with breaks

Two groups of participants differing in age were compared on a time production task during which timing was temporarily interrupted. Produced intervals lengthened with increasing delay before the break occurrence, and the effect was more pronounced in older than in younger adults. A reaction time response to the signal beginning the break period was required also. Older participants responded more slowly to this signal, but they benefited to a greater extent from a lengthening of the time preceding its presentation. These results suggest that performance of older participants is affected by attention sharing and preparation involved in timing with breaks.     

An examination of relationships between the pleasantness,intensity, and concentration of 10 odorous stimuli

Relationships between physical concentration, perceived pleasantness, and perceived intensity were established by the method of magnitude estimation for 10 diverse chemical stimuli. Estimates of pleasantness significantly correlated with those of intensity for seven of the compounds examined. In all cases, the relationships between perceived intensity and physical concentration were described relatively well by power functions. However, this was not true for the pleasantness/concentration relationships. Intensity exponents correlated moderately with a number of common physicochemical parameters. Large differences were present between individual observer’s ratings of the perceived pleasantness of the odorants. These data indicate that the perceived pleasantness of some odorants may be systematically related to their perceived intensity, but do not support the notion that these dimensions are equivalent.

     

Age-related differences in profiles of mood-change trajectories

As a group, older adults report positive affective lives. The extent to which there are subgroups of older adults whose moods are less positive, however, is unclear. Our aim in the present study was to identify and characterize different subgroups of adults who exhibit distinct trajectories of mood change across a relatively short time period. Seventy-nine young and 103 older adults continuously reported their moods while viewing emotional and neutral faces. Cluster analysis revealed four subgroups of mood-change trajectories. Both the most positive and the most negative subgroups included more older than young adults (ps < .05), suggesting that not all older adults exhibit higher positive affect than young adults. Analyses of variance revealed that the most negative group exhibited slower processing speed, more state anxiety and neuroticism, and looked less at happy faces than the other groups (ps < .05). The results are discussed from an adult developmental perspective, focusing on the increased variability of mood trajectories in the older adults and whether this is a reflection of adaptive functioning or a potential harbinger of dysfunction.     

Age-related differences in the processing of redundant visual dimensions

Age differences in the redundant-signals effect and coactivation of visual dimensions were investigated in 2 experiments. In Experiment 1 the task required the conjoining of dimensions, whereas in Experiment 2 the spatial separation of dimensions was manipulated. Although coactivation was evident for both age groups when the redundant dimensions occurred at the same location, older adults showed more evidence for coactivation, perhaps because of compensation for declines in perceptual processing. When the redundant dimensions were separated, neither age group showed evidence for coactivation. These findings indicate that the coactive processing of redundant visual dimensions is spared in healthy older adults and that for both groups, attention must be focused on both dimensions for coactivation to occur.     

Age-related differences in the rhythmic structure of the golf swing

Participants were 20 younger golfers (M age=19.8 years, SD=1.84 years) and 20 older golfers (M age=63.0 years, SD=2.55 years) who attempted 40- and 80-yard eight-iron shots requiring an adjustment of their force and timing. No age-related differences were found in the tempo or speed of the shot; however, there were differences in the rhythmic relationship between the clubhead force and the weight shift. Whereas younger golfers primarily exhibited a 3 versus 2 polyrhythmic pattern between the peak forces of the clubhead and weight shift, older golfers primarily exhibited a simpler 3 versus 3 rhythmic force pattern by adding a forward weight shift at the beginning of the shot. Additionally, older golfers exhibited less independence between the timing of the clubhead force and weight shift, which indicated greater use of a single integrated coordinative unit rather than 2 units. These findings are interpreted as compensations for age-related slowing and increased temporal variability that help to preserve tempo at a speed comparable to younger adults.     

Age-related differences and similarities in dual-task interference

Differences between younger adults (mean age, 20.7 years) and older adults (mean age, 72.7 years) in dual-task performance were examined in 7 experiments in which the overlap between 2 simple tasks was systematically varied. The results were better fit by a task-switching model in which age was assumed to produce generalized slowing than by a shared-capacity model in which age was assumed to reduce processing resources. The functional architecture of task processing appears the same in younger and older adults. There was no evidence for a specific impairment in the ability of older adults to manage simultaneous tasks. There was evidence for both input and output interference, which may be greater in older adults.     

Age-related neural differences in affiliation and isolation

While previous aging studies have focused on particular components of social perception (e.g., theory of mind, self-referencing), little is known about age-related differences specifically for the neural basis of perception of affiliation and isolation. This study investigates age-related similarities and differences in the neural basis of affiliation and isolation. Participants viewed images of affiliation (groups engaged in social interaction) and isolation (lone individuals), as well as nonsocial stimuli (e.g., landscapes), while making pleasantness judgments and undergoing functional neuroimaging (BOLD fMRI). Results indicated age-related similarities in response to affiliation and isolation in recruitment of regions involved in theory of mind and self-referencing (e.g., temporal pole, medial prefrontal cortex). Yet age-related differences also emerged in response to affiliation and isolation in regions implicated in the theory of mind, as well as self-referencing. Specifically, in response to isolation versus affiliation images, older adults showed greater recruitment than did younger adults of the temporal pole, a region that is important for retrieval of personally relevant memories utilized to understand others' mental states. Furthermore, in response to images of affiliation versus isolation, older adults showed greater recruitment than did younger adults of the precuneus, a region implicated in self-referencing. We suggest that age-related divergence in neural activation patterns underlying judgments of scenes depicting isolation versus affiliation may indicate that older adults' theory of mind processes are driven by retrieval of isolation-relevant information. Moreover, older adults' greater recruitment of the precuneus for affiliation versus isolation suggests that the positivity bias for emotional information may extend to social information involving affiliation.     

Age-related differences in episodic feeling-of-knowing arise from differences in memory performance

Previous studies about the effects of ageing on the episodic feeling-of-knowing (FOK) accuracy and its underlying processes have yielded conflicting results. Recent work suggests that using alternative measures to gamma correlations might allow more accurate and informative interpretations of metamemory performance in ageing. We therefore investigated this issue with a large sample of 59 young and 61 older participants using alternative signal-detection theory (SDT) measures. These measures (receiver operating characteristic curves and Brier score) are recommended in the literature and able to reveal the characteristic profile of impairment in ageing. Our results suggest that the FOK accuracy deficit observed in the literature arises from differences in memory performance. This observation provides a convenient explanation to the previous discrepancies and furthermore supports the interest of the use of SDT-derived measures in the frame of metamemory.