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Widowhood Impairs Emotional Cognition Among Elderly

BACKGROUND: The negative impacts of spousal bereavement on the emotional health of the elderly (e.g., depression and anxiety) have been revealed. However, whether widowhood impairs emotional cognition among the elderly is less known. The purpose of this study is to reveal the emotional cognitive def...

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Autores principales: Bi, Taiyong, Kou, Hui, Kong, Yanshu, Shao, Boyao
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8841410/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35173602
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2021.808885
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author Bi, Taiyong
Kou, Hui
Kong, Yanshu
Shao, Boyao
author_facet Bi, Taiyong
Kou, Hui
Kong, Yanshu
Shao, Boyao
author_sort Bi, Taiyong
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The negative impacts of spousal bereavement on the emotional health of the elderly (e.g., depression and anxiety) have been revealed. However, whether widowhood impairs emotional cognition among the elderly is less known. The purpose of this study is to reveal the emotional cognitive deficits among the widowed elderly. METHODS: In this study, we recruited 44 widowed elderly (WE) and 44 elder couples (non-widowed elderly, NWE) and examined their emotional cognition including attention and visual working memory, which were measured by the visual search task and delayed-match-to-sample task, respectively. Three kinds of emotional faces (i.e., sad, angry, and happy) were adopted as the attentional or mnemonic targets. RESULTS: It revealed that WE had a general deficit in search efficiency across emotional types, while they showed mnemonic deficits in negative faces but not positive faces. Furthermore, the modeling analysis revealed that the level of depression or state anxiety of the elderly moderated the effects of widowhood on the deficits of mnemonic processing, i.e., the deficits were only evident among WE with the high level of depression or state anxiety. CONCLUSION: These findings reveal the attentional deficits in sad, angry, and happy faces and the mnemonic deficits in sad and angry faces among elderly who suffer from widowhood and point out the important role of emotional problems such as depression and state anxiety in modulating these emotional cognitive deficits.
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spelling pubmed-88414102022-02-15 Widowhood Impairs Emotional Cognition Among Elderly Bi, Taiyong Kou, Hui Kong, Yanshu Shao, Boyao Front Aging Neurosci Neuroscience BACKGROUND: The negative impacts of spousal bereavement on the emotional health of the elderly (e.g., depression and anxiety) have been revealed. However, whether widowhood impairs emotional cognition among the elderly is less known. The purpose of this study is to reveal the emotional cognitive deficits among the widowed elderly. METHODS: In this study, we recruited 44 widowed elderly (WE) and 44 elder couples (non-widowed elderly, NWE) and examined their emotional cognition including attention and visual working memory, which were measured by the visual search task and delayed-match-to-sample task, respectively. Three kinds of emotional faces (i.e., sad, angry, and happy) were adopted as the attentional or mnemonic targets. RESULTS: It revealed that WE had a general deficit in search efficiency across emotional types, while they showed mnemonic deficits in negative faces but not positive faces. Furthermore, the modeling analysis revealed that the level of depression or state anxiety of the elderly moderated the effects of widowhood on the deficits of mnemonic processing, i.e., the deficits were only evident among WE with the high level of depression or state anxiety. CONCLUSION: These findings reveal the attentional deficits in sad, angry, and happy faces and the mnemonic deficits in sad and angry faces among elderly who suffer from widowhood and point out the important role of emotional problems such as depression and state anxiety in modulating these emotional cognitive deficits. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-01-31 /pmc/articles/PMC8841410/ /pubmed/35173602 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2021.808885 Text en Copyright © 2022 Bi, Kou, Kong and Shao. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/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) and the copyright owner(s) 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 Neuroscience
Bi, Taiyong
Kou, Hui
Kong, Yanshu
Shao, Boyao
Widowhood Impairs Emotional Cognition Among Elderly
title Widowhood Impairs Emotional Cognition Among Elderly
title_full Widowhood Impairs Emotional Cognition Among Elderly
title_fullStr Widowhood Impairs Emotional Cognition Among Elderly
title_full_unstemmed Widowhood Impairs Emotional Cognition Among Elderly
title_short Widowhood Impairs Emotional Cognition Among Elderly
title_sort widowhood impairs emotional cognition among elderly
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8841410/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35173602
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2021.808885
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