Are preferences in emotional processing affected by distraction? Examining the age-related positivity effect in visual fixation within a dual-task paradigm

Recent research has suggested that age-related positivity effects are eliminated under conditions of dual-task load (Knight et al., 2007, Emotion, 7, 705; Mather & Knight, 2005, Psychology and Aging, 20, 554), because the cognitive control resources necessary to enact such preferences are not available when individuals are distracted by competing information. We further examined how older adults' emotional information processing preferences are affected by distracting information by utilizing a within-subjects dual-task measure. Younger and older adults viewed a series of positive, negative, and neutral images both in conditions of full and divided attention. Fixation preferences to valenced images were assessed through eye tracking. Regardless of whether images were viewed in full or divided attention conditions, older adults demonstrated a preference in their fixation for positive and neutral in comparison to negative images. These results provide evidence that older adults' positive fixation preferences may not always necessitate full, cognitive control.     

Selective preference in visual fixation away from negative images in old age? An eye-tracking study

Recent studies have suggested that older individuals selectively forget negative information. However, findings on a positivity effect in the attention of older adults have been more mixed. In the current study, eye tracking was used to record visual fixation in nearly real-time to investigate whether older individuals show a positivity effect in their visual attention to emotional information. Young and old individuals (N = 64) viewed pairs of synthetic faces that included the same face in a nonemotional expression and in 1 of 4 emotional expressions (happiness, sadness, anger, or fear). Gaze patterns were recorded as individuals viewed the face pairs. Older adults showed an attentional preference toward happy faces and away from angry ones; the only preference shown by young adults was toward afraid faces. The age groups were not different in overall cognitive functioning, suggesting that these attentional differences are specific and motivated rather than due to general cognitive change with age.     

Age-related differences in medial prefrontal activation in response to emotional images

Research has suggested that aging results in a "positivity effect," with young adults dwelling on negative information, and older adults attending to positive information. In order to understand age-related changes in emotional processing underlying this effect, the present fMRI study compared neural activity in young and older adults as they viewed positive, negative, and neutral images. Results indicated a striking age-related reversal in the valence of information eliciting activity within the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC). Negative in comparison with positive images activated the VMPFC more for young adults, whereas positive in comparison with negative images activated the VMPFC more for the older adults. The VMPFC is a region associated with the processing of emotional information, and more specifically, with emotion generation and emotion regulation. Therefore, the present results suggest that age-related changes in these processes implemented by the VMPFC contribute to older adults' "positivity effect."     

The effects of emotional content on reality-monitoring performance in young and older adults

Reality monitoring refers to a person's ability to distinguish between perceived and imagined events. Prior research has demonstrated that young adults show a reality-monitoring advantage for negative arousing information as compared with neutral information. The present research examined whether this reality-monitoring benefit extends to positive information in young adults and whether older adults show a reality-monitoring advantage for emotional information of either valence. Two studies revealed no evidence for a reality-monitoring advantage for positive information; in both age groups, the reality-monitoring advantage existed only for negative information. Older adults were, however, more likely to remember that a positive item had been included on a study list than they were to remember that a nonemotional item had been studied. Young adults did not show this mnemonic enhancement for positive information. These results indicate that although older adults may show some mnemonic benefits for positive information (i.e., an enhanced ability to remember that a positive item was studied), they do not always show enhanced memory for source-specifying details of a positive item's presentation.     

简化的联合再认范式中情绪对错误记忆影响的年龄差异

以康奈尔情绪DRM词表为主要实验材料, 使用简化的联合再认范式(DRM范式的变式), 结合多项式加工树建模的统计手段, 对34名年轻人(23 ± 2岁)和28名老年人(68 ± 5岁)的再认记忆进行比较, 以考察不同年龄组中情绪效价对错误记忆的作用机制。结果发现材料的情绪效价对错误记忆的影响存在显著年龄差异：(1) 积极情绪能够有效降低老年人的错误记忆, 其作用机制为积极情绪增强了老年人的字面痕迹而减弱了要点痕迹提取; (2) 消极情绪能够有效地降低年轻人的错误记忆, 其作用机制为消极情绪使年轻人反应偏向降低, 但不影响其记忆痕迹的提取。结果表明, 简化的联合再认范式下, 情绪效价对错误记忆的效应存在明显的年龄差异：老年人表现出积极情绪降低错误记忆的积极偏向; 年轻人表现出消极情绪降低错误记忆的消极偏向; 情绪效应对错误记忆的认知机制存在年龄差异。     

Age effects on social cognition: faces tell a different story

The authors administered social cognition tasks to younger and older adults to investigate age-related differences in social and emotional processing. Although slower, older adults were as accurate as younger adults in identifying the emotional valence (i.e., positive, negative, or neutral) of facial expressions. However, the age difference in reaction time was largest for negative faces. Older adults were significantly less accurate at identifying specific facial expressions of fear and sadness. No age differences specific to social function were found on tasks of self-reference, identifying emotional words, or theory of mind. Performance on the social tasks in older adults was independent of performance on general cognitive tasks (e.g., working memory) but was related to personality traits and emotional awareness. Older adults also showed more intercorrelations among the social tasks than did the younger adults. These findings suggest that age differences in social cognition are limited to the processing of facial emotion. Nevertheless, with age there appears to be increasing reliance on a common resource to perform social tasks, but one that is not shared with other cognitive domains.     

Age-related differences in attentional bias for emotional faces

Past research suggests an aging-related positivity effect in orienting to faces. However, these studies have eschewed direct comparison of orienting when positive and negative faces are presented simultaneously, thereby potentially underestimating the degree to which emotional valence influences such effects. In the current study younger and older adults viewed face pairs for 1000 ms, and upon face-pair offset indicated the location of a dot that appeared in the former location of one of the faces, to assess attentional orienting. When shown negative–neutral pairs, both age groups were biased to attend to negative faces, but when shown positive–negative pairs only younger adults showed a bias toward negative; older adults showed a lack of orienting toward either emotional face. Results suggest younger adults have a negativity bias in attention orienting regardless of the valence of nearby stimuli, whereas older adults show an absence of this bias when positive information is present.     

语境信息对面部表情加工的影响

为检验语境信息在面部表情加工和识别中的作用,通过两个实验考察语境信息的情绪性和自我相关性对中性以及不同强度恐惧面孔情绪加工的影响。结果发现,积极语境下中性情绪面孔效价的评分更高,自我相关语境下中性面孔唤醒度的评分更高;消极语境下面孔的恐惧情绪更容易被察觉。因此,面部表情加工中的语境效应表现为对中性情绪面孔的情绪诱发和增强作用,以及在情绪一致情况下对不同情绪强度面孔判断的促进作用。     

The impacts of task relevance and cognitive load on adults’ decision information search

ABSTRACT

Higher relevance may increase older adults’ engagement in cognitively demanding activities; however, whether this effect will maintain when available cognitive resources are limited? Consequently, we investigated the joint impact of task relevance and cognitive load on older and younger adults’ decision search behaviors. We adopted a 2 (age: young/old) × 2 (cognitive load: without load/with load) × 2 (task relevance: high/low) mixed design. Sixty-one younger and 63 older adults completed high-relevance and low-relevance decisions. Our results revealed that older (vs. younger) adults took more time and more alternative-based search before decision-making. Both age groups sampled less information with an additional memory task. Additionally, they spent more time and effort to sample more information on high-relevance (vs. low-relevance) decisions; however, such differences disappeared when with an additional memory task. Task relevance promoted both age groups' search engagement, but this effect was subjected to their available cognitive resources.     

Cognitive consequences of expressive regulation in older adults

Previous research has suggested that older and young adults are equally able to regulate their outward expressions of emotion and that the regulation of emotional expression in younger adults results in decreased memory for the emotional stimulus. In the current study, we examined whether older adults show this same memory effect. Older and young adults viewed positive and negative emotional pictures under instructions to view the pictures naturally, enhance their facial expressions, or suppress their facial expressions. Older and young adults showed equivalent outward regulation of expression, but suppressing their emotional expressions led to reduced memory for emotional stimuli only in the young adults. The results suggest that older and young adults are achieving control of their expressions through different mechanisms or strategies.     

Aging and motivated cognition: the positivity effect in attention and memory

As people get older, they experience fewer negative emotions. Strategic processes in older adults' emotional attention and memory might play a role in this variation with age. Older adults show more emotionally gratifying memory distortion for past choices and autobiographical information than younger adults do. In addition, when shown stimuli that vary in affective valence, positive items account for a larger proportion of older adults' subsequent memories than those of younger adults. This positivity effect in older adults' memories seems to be due to their greater focus on emotion regulation and to be implemented by cognitive control mechanisms that enhance positive and diminish negative information. These findings suggest that both cognitive abilities and motivation contribute to older adults' improved emotion regulation.     

Age-related differences in valence and arousal ratings of pictures from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS): Do ratings become more extreme with age?

The International Affective Picture System (IAPS) has been widely used in aging-oriented research on emotion. However, no ratings for older adults are available. The aim of the present study was to close this gap by providing ratings of valence and arousal for 504 IAPS pictures by 53 young and 53 older adults. Both age groups rated positive pictures as less arousing, resulting in a stronger linear association between valence and arousal, than has been found in previous studies. This association was even stronger in older than in young adults. Older adults perceived negative pictures as more negative and more arousing and positive pictures as more positive and less arousing than young adults did. This might indicate a dedifferentiation of emotional processing in old age. On the basis of a picture recognition task, we also report memorability scores for individual pictures and how they relate to valence and arousal ratings. Data for all the pictures are archived at www.psychonomic.org/archive/.     

Local context effects during emotional item directed forgetting in younger and older adults

This paper explored the differential sensitivity young and older adults exhibit to the local context of items entering memory. We examined trial-to-trial performance during an item directed forgetting task for positive, negative, and neutral (or baseline) words each cued as either to-be-remembered (TBR) or to-be-forgotten (TBF). This allowed us to focus on how variations in emotional valence (independent of arousal) and instruction (TBR vs. TBF) of the previous item (trial n-1) impacted memory for the current item (trial n) during encoding. Different from research showing impairing effects of emotional arousal, both age groups showed a memorial boost for stimuli when preceded by items high in positive or negative valence relative to those preceded by neutral items. This advantage was particularly prominent for neutral trial n items that followed emotional items suggesting that, regardless of age, neutral memories may be strengthened by a local context that is high in valence. A trending age difference also emerged with older adults showing greater sensitivity when encoding instructions changed between trial n-1 and n. Results are discussed in light of age-related theories of cognitive and emotional processing, highlighting the need to consider the dynamic, moment-to-moment fluctuations of these systems.     

Phenomenological characteristics of emotional memories in younger and older adults

Older adults sometimes show a “positivity effect” in memory, remembering proportionally more positive information than younger adults. Using a modified Memory Characteristics Questionnaire, this study examined whether emotional valence impacts the phenomenological qualities of young and older adults’ memories. Ageing did not impact the effect of valence on the qualities of high-arousal memories. However, ageing sometimes impacted subjective memory for details of low-arousal memories: In Experiment 2, older adults reported remembering more thoughts, feelings, and temporal order details about positive low-arousal stimuli, while young adults’ ratings for those dimensions were higher for negative low-arousal stimuli. These findings suggest that valence most readily affects the qualities of young and older adults’ emotional memories when those memories are low in arousal.     

Age influences the relation between subjective valence ratings and emotional word use during autobiographical memory retrieval

Recent research reveals an age-related increase in positive autobiographical memory retrieval using a number of positivity measures, including valence ratings and positive word use. It is currently unclear whether the positivity shift in each of these measures co-occurs, or if age uniquely influences multiple components of autobiographical memory retrieval. The current study examined the correspondence between valence ratings and emotional word use in young and older adults' autobiographical memories. Positive word use in narratives was associated with valence ratings only in young adults' narratives. Older adults' narratives contained a consistent level of positive word use regardless of valence rating, suggesting that positive words and concepts may be chronically accessible to older adults during memory retrieval, regardless of subjective valence. Although a relation between negative word use in narratives and negative valence ratings was apparent in both young and older adults, it was stronger in older adults' narratives. These findings confirm that older adults do vary their word use in accordance with subjective valence, but they do so in a way that is different from young adults. The results also point to a potential dissociation between age-related changes in subjective valence and in positive word use.     

Age effects in emotional prospective memory: cue valence differentially affects the prospective and retrospective component

While first studies suggested that emotional task material may enhance prospective memory performance in young and older adults, the extent and mechanisms of this effect are under debate. The authors explored possible differential effects of cue valence on the prospective and retrospective component of prospective memory in young and older adults. Forty-five young and 41 older adults performed a prospective memory task in which emotional valence of the prospective memory cue was manipulated (positive, negative, neutral). The multinomial model of event-based prospective memory was used to analyze effects of valence and age on the two prospective memory components separately. Results revealed an interaction indicating that age differences were smaller in both emotional valence conditions. For older adults positive cues improved the prospective component, while negative cues improved the retrospective component. No main effect of valence was found for younger adults on an overt accuracy measure, but model-based analyses showed that the retrospective component was enhanced in the positive compared with the negative cue condition. The study extends the literature in demonstrating that processes underlying emotional effects on prospective memory may differ depending on valence and age.     

Evaluating the valence of remembered events: the importance of age and self-relevance

We examined the role of self-relevance in older and younger adults' evaluations of remembered events. In Study 1, participants rated the positivity of their own positive, negative and neutral memories as well as those of a same-aged peer. Older adults rated events more positively than younger adults did, regardless of the memory source. In Study 2, we showed that this age difference is not due to differences in the valence of the events that older and younger adults reported. This effect appears to reflect the more positive mindset of older people, rather than an intention to regulate emotions associated with personal experiences. Finally, there was one effect for self relevance: Regardless of age, participants rated their own remembered events as more emotionally intense than those of a same aged peer.     

Self-referencing enhances recollection in both young and older adults

Processing information in relation to the self enhances subsequent item recognition in both young and older adults and further enhances recollection at least in the young. Because older adults experience recollection memory deficits, it is unknown whether self-referencing improves recollection in older adults. We examined recollection benefits from self-referential encoding in older and younger adults and further examined the quality and quantity of episodic details facilitated by self-referencing. We further investigated the influence of valence on recollection, given prior findings of age group differences in emotional memory (i.e., “positivity effects”). Across the two experiments, young and older adults processed positive and negative adjectives either for self-relevance or for semantic meaning. We found that self-referencing, relative to semantic encoding, increased recollection memory in both age groups. In Experiment 1, both groups remembered proportionally more negative than positive items when adjectives were processed semantically; however, when adjectives were processed self-referentially, both groups exhibited evidence of better recollection for the positive items, inconsistent with a positivity effect in aging. In Experiment 2, both groups reported more episodic details associated with recollected items, as measured by a memory characteristic questionnaire, for the self-reference relative to the semantic condition. Overall, these data suggest that self-referencing leads to detail-rich memory representations reflected in higher rates of recollection across age.     

Unwanted Beliefs: Age Differences in Beliefs of False Information

Two experiments were conducted to test the Spinozan model of believing. Because of their reduced cognitive resources, older adults were predicted to be more likely than young adults to believe false information. Experiment 1 used a dispositional attribution paradigm to test this hypothesis. Young and older adults were exposed to both true and false (either positive or negative) trait information about the target persons. Participants then made dispositional ratings and evaluated the target persons on overall likeability scales. Results supported the Spinozan model of believing. Older adults were more likely than young adults to believe false information and their dispositional ratings were reliably biased by the valence of false information. Experiment 2 further examined whether these false beliefs of older adults were actually conscious beliefs. It was found that older adults consciously recollected the false statements as true and these false beliefs mediated age differences in dispositional attribution.