Preferences for emotional information in older and younger adults: a meta-analysis of memory and attention tasks.

The authors conducted a meta-analysis to determine the magnitude of older and younger adults' preferences for emotional stimuli in studies of attention and memory. Analyses involved 1,085 older adults from 37 independent samples and 3,150 younger adults from 86 independent samples. Both age groups exhibited small to medium emotion salience effects (i.e., preference for emotionally valenced stimuli over neutral stimuli) as well as positivity preferences (i.e., preference for positively valenced stimuli over neutral stimuli) and negativity preferences (i.e., preference for negatively valenced stimuli to neutral stimuli). There were few age differences overall. Type of measurement appeared to influence the magnitude of effects; recognition studies indicated significant age effects, where older adults showed smaller effects for emotion salience and negativity preferences than younger adults.

[1]  D. Isaacowitz,et al.  Aging Eyes Facing an Emotional World: The Role of Motivated Gaze , 2010 .

[2]  D. Isaacowitz,et al.  Age effects and gaze patterns in recognising emotional expressions: An in-depth look at gaze measures and covariates , 2010 .

[3]  J. Tanaka,et al.  The NimStim set of facial expressions: Judgments from untrained research participants , 2009, Psychiatry Research.

[4]  Mara Mather,et al.  Aging and goal-directed emotional attention: distraction reverses emotional biases. , 2007, Emotion.

[5]  M. Kisley,et al.  Looking at the Sunny Side of Life , 2007, Psychological science.

[6]  P. Costa,et al.  Age differences in recognition of emotion in lexical stimuli and facial expressions. , 2007, Psychology and aging.

[7]  M. Kisley,et al.  The negativity bias is eliminated in older adults: age-related reduction in event-related brain potentials associated with evaluative categorization. , 2006, Psychology and aging.

[8]  Lynn Hasher,et al.  The influence of emotional valence on age differences in early processing and memory. , 2006, Psychology and aging.

[9]  Bruno Verschuere,et al.  Components of attentional bias to threat in high trait anxiety: Facilitated engagement, impaired disengagement, and attentional avoidance. , 2006, Behaviour research and therapy.

[10]  Curt A. Carlson,et al.  Aging and visual search: automatic and controlled attentional bias to threat faces. , 2006, Acta psychologica.

[11]  A. Anderson,et al.  Emotional memories are not all created equal: evidence for selective memory enhancement. , 2006, Learning & memory.

[12]  T. Iidaka,et al.  Gamma band activity and its synchronization reflect the dysfunctional emotional processing in alexithymic persons. , 2006, Psychophysiology.

[13]  K. Mogg,et al.  Orienting and maintenance of gaze to facial expressions in social anxiety. , 2006, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[14]  G. Crombez,et al.  Attention to Threat in Anxiety-prone Individuals: Mechanisms Underlying Attentional Bias , 2006, Cognitive Therapy and Research.

[15]  Matthew P Walker,et al.  Sleep Facilitates Consolidation of Emotional Declarative Memory , 2006, Psychological science.

[16]  S. Langton,et al.  Attentional bias to angry faces using the dot-probe task? It depends when you look for it. , 2006, Behaviour research and therapy.

[17]  H. Wilson,et al.  Is there an age-related positivity effect in visual attention? A comparison of two methodologies. , 2006, Emotion.

[18]  E. Keogh,et al.  Anxiety sensitivity: the role of conscious awareness and selective attentional bias to physical threat. , 2006, Emotion.

[19]  Daniel Tranel,et al.  The influence of autonomic arousal and semantic relatedness on memory for emotional words. , 2006, International journal of psychophysiology : official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology.

[20]  C. I. Wright,et al.  False Recognition of Emotional Word Lists in Aging and Alzheimer Disease , 2006, Cognitive and behavioral neurology : official journal of the Society for Behavioral and Cognitive Neurology.

[21]  J. Hyönä,et al.  Eye movement assessment of selective attentional capture by emotional pictures. , 2006, Emotion.

[22]  D. Isaacowitz,et al.  An Attentional Application of Socioemotional Selectivity Theory in College Students , 2006 .

[23]  D. Roberson,et al.  Mood-congruent free recall bias in anxious individuals is not a consequence of response bias , 2006, Memory.

[24]  D. Isaacowitz.  Motivated Gaze , 2006 .

[25]  Hugh R. Wilson,et al.  Selective preference in visual fixation away from negative images in old age? An eye-tracking study. , 2006, Psychology and aging.

[26]  Derek M. Isaacowitz,et al.  Positive mood broadens visual attention to positive stimuli , 2006, Motivation and emotion.

[27]  M. Codispoti,et al.  When does size not matter? Effects of stimulus size on affective modulation. , 2006, Psychophysiology.

[28]  L. Luecken,et al.  Attentional processes, anxiety, and the regulation of cortisol reactivity , 2006 .

[29]  Jason Tipples,et al.  Fear and fearfulness potentiate automatic orienting to eye gaze , 2006 .

[30]  K. LaBar,et al.  Emotional enhancement of perceptual priming is preserved in aging and early-stage Alzheimer's disease , 2005, Neuropsychologia.

[31]  P. Baltes,et al.  No aging bias favoring memory for positive material: evidence from a heterogeneity-homogeneity list paradigm using emotionally toned words. , 2005, Psychology and aging.

[32]  Elizabeth A. Leighton,et al.  Aging, source memory, and emotion. , 2005, Psychology and aging.

[33]  Carol M Woods,et al.  Publication bias in research synthesis: sensitivity analysis using a priori weight functions. , 2005, Psychological methods.

[34]  Arnaud D'Argembeau,et al.  Influence of emotion on memory for temporal information. , 2005, Emotion.

[35]  Mara Mather,et al.  Goal-directed memory: the role of cognitive control in older adults' emotional memory. , 2005, Psychology and aging.

[36]  Geert Crombez,et al.  Mood-congruent attentional bias in dysphoria: maintained attention to and impaired disengagement from negative information. , 2005, Emotion.

[37]  B. Knight,et al.  The effects of anxiety on attentional processes in older adults , 2005, Aging & mental health.

[38]  Bonnie Wong,et al.  Patterns of visual scanning as predictors of emotion identification in normal aging. , 2005, Neuropsychology.

[39]  Dominique Lamy,et al.  Attentional bias in anxiety: A behavioral and ERP study , 2005, Brain and Cognition.

[40]  M. Nomura,et al.  Neural evidence of effects of emotional valence on word recognition. , 2005, International journal of psychophysiology : official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology.

[41]  J. Kerns.  Positive schizotypy and emotion processing. , 2005, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[42]  Bruno Verschuere,et al.  Time-course of attention for threatening pictures in high and low trait anxiety. , 2005, Behaviour research and therapy.

[43]  Laura L. Carstensen,et al.  At the Intersection of Emotion and Cognition , 2005 .

[44]  Olivier Piguet,et al.  Memory for contextual details: effects of emotion and aging. , 2005, Psychology and aging.

[45]  J. Busemeyer,et al.  Older adults as adaptive decision makers: evidence from the Iowa Gambling Task. , 2005, Psychology and aging.

[46]  A. Kleinschmidt,et al.  Effects of arousing emotional scenes on the distribution of visuospatial attention: changes with aging and early subcortical vascular dementia , 2005, Journal of the Neurological Sciences.

[47]  J. Wiley,et al.  Fear of Failure Biases Affective and Attentional Responses to Lexical and Pictorial Stimuli , 2005 .

[48]  T. Hadjistavropoulos,et al.  The effects of age and fear of pain on attentional and memory biases relating to pain and falls , 2005 .

[49]  A. Zeichner,et al.  Effect of Trait Anger on Cognitive Processing of Emotional Stimuli , 2005, The Journal of general psychology.

[50]  S. Corkin,et al.  Effects of Alzheimer disease on memory for verbal emotional information , 2004, Neuropsychologia.

[51]  J. Hietanen,et al.  Positive facial expressions are recognized faster than negative facial expressions, but why? , 2004, Psychological research.

[52]  A. Mecklinger,et al.  Recognition Memory for Emotional and Neutral Faces: An Event-Related Potential Study , 2004, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[53]  Lindsey A. Leigland,et al.  Age related changes in emotional memory , 2004, Neurobiology of Aging.

[54]  Lee H. Wurm,et al.  Performance in auditory and visual emotional stroop tasks: a comparison of older and younger adults. , 2004, Psychology and aging.

[55]  D. Algom,et al.  A rational look at the emotional stroop phenomenon: a generic slowdown, not a stroop effect. , 2004, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[56]  R. Sternberg,et al.  Motivation, emotion, and cognition: integrative perspectives on intellectual functioning and development , 2004 .

[57]  Arnaud D'Argembeau,et al.  Influence of affective meaning on memory for contextual information. , 2004, Emotion.

[58]  Suzanne Corkin,et al.  The effects of emotional content and aging on false memories , 2004, Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience.

[59]  Mara Mather,et al.  The Role of Motivation in the Age-Related Positivity Effect in Autobiographical Memory , 2004, Psychological science.

[60]  I. Gotlib,et al.  Attentional biases for negative interpersonal stimuli in clinical depression. , 2004, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[61]  B. Appelhans,et al.  Strategic Coping Responses and Attentional Biases , 2004, Cognitive Therapy and Research.

[62]  Daniel Reisberg,et al.  Memory and emotion. , 2004 .

[63]  Elizabeth A. Kensinger,et al.  Memory enhancement for emotional words: Are emotional words more vividly remembered than neutral words? , 2003, Memory & cognition.

[64]  S. Corkin,et al.  Effect of negative emotional content on working memory and long-term memory. , 2003, Emotion.

[65]  J. Hietanen,et al.  Does facial expression affect attention orienting by gaze direction cues? , 2003, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[66]  G. Labouvie-vief,et al.  Dynamic Integration , 2003 .

[67]  S. Potkin,et al.  Memory for emotional stimuli in patients with Alzheimer's disease , 2003, American journal of Alzheimer's disease and other dementias.

[68]  Mara Mather,et al.  Aging and Attentional Biases for Emotional Faces , 2003, Psychological science.

[69]  J. Lépine,et al.  Selective attention in social phobia and the moderating effect of a concurrent depressive disorder. , 2003, Behaviour research and therapy.

[70]  Daniel Tranel,et al.  Evidence for preserved emotional memory in normal older persons. , 2003, Emotion.

[71]  P. Ferré.  Effects of level of processing on memory for affectively valenced words , 2003 .

[72]  J. Vlaeyen,et al.  Selective attention and avoidance of pain-related stimuli: a dot-probe evaluation in a pain-free population. , 2003, The journal of pain : official journal of the American Pain Society.

[73]  L. Carstensen,et al.  Sending memorable messages to the old: age differences in preferences and memory for advertisements. , 2003, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[74]  M. Mather,et al.  Aging and emotional memory: the forgettable nature of negative images for older adults. , 2003, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[75]  R. Dolan,et al.  Emotion, Cognition, and Behavior , 2002, Science.

[76]  L. Phillips,et al.  Age and the understanding of emotions: neuropsychological and sociocognitive perspectives. , 2002, The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences.

[77]  R. Cabeza,et al.  Event-related potentials of emotional memory: Encoding pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral pictures , 2002, Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience.

[78]  R. Adolphs,et al.  2. The role of the human amygdala in emotional modulation of long-term declarative memory , 2002 .

[79]  M. Oaksford,et al.  Emotional cognition: from brain to behaviour , 2002 .

[80]  Jan Dequeker,et al.  Processing Emotional Information in Alzheimer’s Disease: Effects on Memory Performance and Neurophysiological Correlates , 2002, Dementia and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders.

[81]  Nick Medford,et al.  Effects of normal aging and Alzheimer's disease on emotional memory. , 2002, Emotion.

[82]  K. Vohs,et al.  Case Western Reserve University , 1990 .

[83]  Edward B. Royzman,et al.  Negativity Bias, Negativity Dominance, and Contagion , 2001 .

[84]  Stephan Hamann,et al.  Cognitive and neural mechanisms of emotional memory , 2001, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[85]  E. Fox,et al.  Mood-congruent free recall bias in anxiety , 2001 .

[86]  E. Keogh,et al.  Selective attentional bias for pain-related stimuli amongst pain fearful individuals , 2001, Pain.

[87]  M. D. Murphy,et al.  Are emotionally charged lures immune to false memory? , 2001, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[88]  Sandra Weintraub,et al.  Emotional curiosity: modulation of visuospatial attention by arousal is preserved in aging and early-stage Alzheimer’s disease , 2000, Neuropsychologia.

[89]  L. Cahill,et al.  Impact of emotion on memory. Controlled study of the influence of emotionally charged material on declarative memory in Alzheimer's disease. , 2000, The British journal of psychiatry : the journal of mental science.

[90]  Mark W. Lipsey,et al.  Practical Meta-Analysis , 2000 .

[91]  L. Cahill,et al.  Relative sparing of emotionally influenced memory in Alzheimer's disease , 2000, Neuroreport.

[92]  M. Bradley,et al.  Affective picture processing: the late positive potential is modulated by motivational relevance. , 2000, Psychophysiology.

[93]  K. Mogg,et al.  Some methodological issues in assessing attentional biases for threatening faces in anxiety: a replication study using a modified version of the probe detection task. , 1999, Behaviour research and therapy.

[94]  L. Carstensen,et al.  Taking time seriously. A theory of socioemotional selectivity. , 1999, The American psychologist.

[95]  Scott T. Grafton,et al.  Amygdala activity related to enhanced memory for pleasant and aversive stimuli , 1999, Nature Neuroscience.

[96]  P. Pollitt,et al.  Pregnancy may confer a selective cognitive advantage , 1999 .

[97]  J. Russell,et al.  Science Current Directions in Psychological the Structure of Current Affect : Controversies and Emerging Consensus on Behalf Of: Association for Psychological Science , 2022 .

[98]  E. Phelps,et al.  Arousal-Mediated Memory Consolidation: Role of the Medial Temporal Lobe in Humans , 1998 .

[99]  K. Mogg,et al.  Attentional Bias for Threatening Facial Expressions in Anxiety: Manipulation of Stimulus Duration , 1998 .

[100]  Jeff T. Larsen,et al.  Negative information weighs more heavily on the brain: the negativity bias in evaluative categorizations. , 1998, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[101]  F. Craik,et al.  The attentional demands of encoding and retrieval in younger and older adults: 1. Evidence from divided attention costs. , 1998, Psychology and aging.

[102]  Dennis D. Spencer,et al.  Memory for Emotional Words Following Unilateral Temporal Lobectomy , 1997, Brain and Cognition.

[103]  R. Adolphs,et al.  Impaired declarative memory for emotional material following bilateral amygdala damage in humans. , 1997, Learning & memory.

[104]  J. D. McGaugh,et al.  Intact enhancement of declarative memory for emotional material in amnesia. , 1997, Learning & memory.

[105]  J. Suls,et al.  Differential roles of neuroticism, extraversion, and event desirability for mood in daily life: an integrative model of top-down and bottom-up influences. , 1997, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[106]  W. Dunlap,et al.  Meta-Analysis of Experiments With Matched Groups or Repeated Measures Designs , 1996 .

[107]  S. Verney,et al.  Unconscious mood-congruent memory bias in depression. , 1996, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[108]  S. González.  Índices de interés psicolingüístico de 1917 palabras castellanas , 1996 .

[109]  Robert Rosenthal,et al.  WRITING META-ANALYTIC REVIEWS , 1995 .

[110]  P. Andersen,et al.  [Learning and memory]. , 1995, Tidsskrift for den Norske laegeforening : tidsskrift for praktisk medicin, ny raekke.

[111]  James L. McGaugh,et al.  β-Adrenergic activation and memory for emotional events , 1994, Nature.

[112]  L. Carstensen,et al.  The salience of emotion across the adult life span. , 1994, Psychology and aging.

[113]  Duane T. Wegener,et al.  Mood management across affective states: the hedonic contingency hypothesis. , 1994, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[114]  J. Cacioppo,et al.  Relationship between attitudes and evaluative space: A critical review, with emphasis on the separability of positive and negative substrates. , 1994 .

[115]  Gwenn W. Gröndal,et al.  Meta-analytic procedures for social research , 1993 .

[116]  M. Liebowitz,et al.  Reaction time to threat stimuli in panic disorder and social phobia. , 1992, Behaviour research and therapy.

[117]  Laura L. Carstensen,et al.  Social and emotional patterns in adulthood: support for socioemotional selectivity theory. , 1992, Psychology and aging.

[118]  Shelley E. Taylor,et al.  Asymmetrical effects of positive and negative events: the mobilization-minimization hypothesis. , 1991, Psychological bulletin.

[119]  Shinobu Kitayama,et al.  Impairment of perception by positive and negative affect , 1991 .

[120]  Ed Diener,et al.  Memory accuracy in the recall of emotions. , 1990 .

[121]  P. Lachenbruch.  Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences (2nd ed.) , 1989 .

[122]  M. Eysenck,et al.  Implicit and explicit memory bias in anxiety. , 1989, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[123]  J. Morais,et al.  Valeur affective de 904 mots de la langue française , 1989 .

[124]  C. Yoder,et al.  Age, affect, and memory for pictorial story sequences. , 1987, British journal of psychology.

[125]  A. Ortony,et al.  The psychological foundations of the affective lexicon. , 1987 .

[126]  Donald B. Rubin,et al.  Meta-Analytic Procedures for Combining Studies With Multiple Effect Sizes , 1986 .

[127]  C. MacLeod,et al.  Attentional bias in emotional disorders. , 1986, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[128]  D. Park,et al.  Memory for pictures, words, and spatial location in older adults: evidence for pictorial superiority. , 1983, Journal of gerontology.

[129]  W. Riege,et al.  Recognition memory for emotional words: a comparative study of young, middle-aged and older persons. , 1980, Journal of gerontology.

[130]  W. Riege,et al.  Autonomic responsivity during recognition memory processing in three age groups. , 1980, Experimental aging research.

[131]  W. P. Brown,et al.  Five rated characteristics of 650 word association stimuli. , 1969, British journal of psychology.

[132]  Claude C. Buxton.  Feelings and Emotions , 1954, The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine.

[133]  D. G. MacKay,et al.  Does emotion help or hinder immediate memory? Arousal versus priority-binding mechanisms. , 2006, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[134]  G. Winocur,et al.  Age effects on social cognition: faces tell a different story. , 2006, Psychology and aging.

[135]  J. Mikels,et al.  Aging and the Intersection of Cognition, Motivation, and Emotion , 2006 .

[136]  Jeff T. Larsen,et al.  The Affect System: What Lurks below the Surface of Feelings? , 2004 .

[137]  G. Labouvie-vief,et al.  Dynamic integration: Affect optimization and differentiation in development. , 2004 .

[138]  M. Mather.  Aging and Emotional Memory. , 2004 .

[139]  M. C. Newman,et al.  Toward a neuropsychology of cognitive aging. , 2000 .

[140]  Norman Abeles,et al.  Psychology and the aging revolution : how we adapt to longer life , 2000 .

[141]  Stephan Hamann,et al.  Memory enhancement for emotional stimuli is impaired in early Alzheimer's disease. , 2000, Neuropsychology.

[142]  A. Carr,et al.  Mood congruent memory bias of individuals with depressed mood and anxiety , 1999 .

[143]  D. Clark,et al.  Social anxiety and attention away from emotional faces , 1999 .

[144]  M. Bradley,et al.  Affective Normsfor English Words (ANEW): Stimuli, instruction manual and affective ratings (Tech Report C-1) , 1999 .

[145]  P. Lang,et al.  International Affective Picture System (IAPS): Instruction Manual and Affective Ratings (Tech. Rep. No. A-4) , 1999 .

[146]  M. Bradley,et al.  Affective Norms for English Words (ANEW): Instruction Manual and Affective Ratings , 1999 .

[147]  J. Segui,et al.  Chronometrics of attentional processes in anxiety disorders. , 1997, Psychopathology.

[148]  P. Lang.  International Affective Picture System (IAPS) : Technical Manual and Affective Ratings , 1995 .

[149]  D. Hermans,et al.  Affective and subjective familiarity ratings of 740 Dutch words , 1994 .

[150]  A. B. Hill,et al.  Depression and selective attention to self-esteem threatening words , 1989 .

[151]  D C Rubin,et al.  Predicting which words get recalled: Measures of free recall, availability, goodness, emotionality, and pronunciability for 925 nouns , 1986, Memory & cognition.

[152]  Ralph L. Rosnow,et al.  Essentials of Behavioral Research: Methods and Data Analysis , 1984 .

[153]  R. Rosenthal.  Meta-analytic procedures for social research , 1984 .

[154]  Susan T. Fiske,et al.  Attention and weight in person perception: The impact of negative and extreme behavior. , 1980 .

[155]  Denise C. Park,et al.  Handbook of the Psychology of Aging , 1979 .

[156]  W. Kintsch,et al.  Memory and cognition , 1977 .

[157]  P. Ekman.  Pictures of Facial Affect , 1976 .

[158]  D. R. Heise,et al.  Semantic di erential profiles for 1000 most frequent English words , 1965 .