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Adult age-differences in subjective impression of emotional faces are reflected in emotion-related attention and memory tasks

Although younger and older adults appear to attend to and remember emotional faces differently, less is known about age-related differences in the subjective emotional impression (arousal, potency, and valence) of emotional faces and how these differences, in turn, are reflected in age differences i...

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Autores principales: Svärd, Joakim, Fischer, Håkan, Lundqvist, Daniel
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4030188/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24860535
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00423
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author Svärd, Joakim
Fischer, Håkan
Lundqvist, Daniel
author_facet Svärd, Joakim
Fischer, Håkan
Lundqvist, Daniel
author_sort Svärd, Joakim
collection PubMed
description Although younger and older adults appear to attend to and remember emotional faces differently, less is known about age-related differences in the subjective emotional impression (arousal, potency, and valence) of emotional faces and how these differences, in turn, are reflected in age differences in various emotional tasks. In the current study, we used the same facial emotional stimuli (angry and happy faces) in four tasks: emotional rating, attention, categorical perception, and visual short-term memory (VSTM). The aim of this study was to investigate effects of age on the subjective emotional impression of angry and happy faces and to examine whether any age differences were mirrored in measures of emotional behavior (attention, categorical perception, and memory). In addition, regression analyses were used to further study impression-behavior associations. Forty younger adults (range 20–30 years) and thirty-nine older adults (range 65–75 years) participated in the experiment. The emotional rating task showed that older adults perceived less arousal, potency, and valence than younger adults and that the difference was more pronounced for angry than happy faces. Similarly, the results of the attention and memory tasks demonstrated interaction effects between emotion and age, and age differences on these measures were larger for angry than for happy faces. Regression analyses confirmed that in both age groups, higher potency ratings predicted both visual search and VSTM efficiency. Future studies should consider the possibility that age differences in the subjective emotional impression of facial emotional stimuli may explain age differences in attention to and memory of such stimuli.
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spelling pubmed-40301882014-05-23 Adult age-differences in subjective impression of emotional faces are reflected in emotion-related attention and memory tasks Svärd, Joakim Fischer, Håkan Lundqvist, Daniel Front Psychol Psychology Although younger and older adults appear to attend to and remember emotional faces differently, less is known about age-related differences in the subjective emotional impression (arousal, potency, and valence) of emotional faces and how these differences, in turn, are reflected in age differences in various emotional tasks. In the current study, we used the same facial emotional stimuli (angry and happy faces) in four tasks: emotional rating, attention, categorical perception, and visual short-term memory (VSTM). The aim of this study was to investigate effects of age on the subjective emotional impression of angry and happy faces and to examine whether any age differences were mirrored in measures of emotional behavior (attention, categorical perception, and memory). In addition, regression analyses were used to further study impression-behavior associations. Forty younger adults (range 20–30 years) and thirty-nine older adults (range 65–75 years) participated in the experiment. The emotional rating task showed that older adults perceived less arousal, potency, and valence than younger adults and that the difference was more pronounced for angry than happy faces. Similarly, the results of the attention and memory tasks demonstrated interaction effects between emotion and age, and age differences on these measures were larger for angry than for happy faces. Regression analyses confirmed that in both age groups, higher potency ratings predicted both visual search and VSTM efficiency. Future studies should consider the possibility that age differences in the subjective emotional impression of facial emotional stimuli may explain age differences in attention to and memory of such stimuli. Frontiers Media S.A. 2014-05-14 /pmc/articles/PMC4030188/ /pubmed/24860535 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00423 Text en Copyright © 2014 Svärd, Fischer and Lundqvist. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Svärd, Joakim
Fischer, Håkan
Lundqvist, Daniel
Adult age-differences in subjective impression of emotional faces are reflected in emotion-related attention and memory tasks
title Adult age-differences in subjective impression of emotional faces are reflected in emotion-related attention and memory tasks
title_full Adult age-differences in subjective impression of emotional faces are reflected in emotion-related attention and memory tasks
title_fullStr Adult age-differences in subjective impression of emotional faces are reflected in emotion-related attention and memory tasks
title_full_unstemmed Adult age-differences in subjective impression of emotional faces are reflected in emotion-related attention and memory tasks
title_short Adult age-differences in subjective impression of emotional faces are reflected in emotion-related attention and memory tasks
title_sort adult age-differences in subjective impression of emotional faces are reflected in emotion-related attention and memory tasks
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4030188/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24860535
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00423
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