Older adults get masked emotion priming for happy but not angry faces

Evidence for a positivity effect in early perceptual processing of emotional signals

Bibliographic Data

ID21505255
AuthorsSimone Simonetti (0000-0003-3464-9935, The Marcs Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia), Chris Davis (0000-0002-6387-4181, The Marcs Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia, corresponding author), Jeesun Kim (0000-0003-2651-1020, The Marcs Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia)
Year2022
Volume36
Issue8
Pages1576-1593
Publication date2022-11-17
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCognition & Emotion (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0269-9931 • E-ISSN: 1464-0600
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/02699931.2022.2138269
PMID36300438
OpenAlexW4307425725
LanguageEN
References cited53

In higher-level cognitive tasks, older compared to younger adults show a bias towards positive emotion information and away from negative information (a positivity effect). It is unclear whether this effect occurs in early perceptual processing. This issue is important for determining if the positivity effect is due to automatic rather than controlled processing. We tested this with older and younger adults on a positive/negative face emotion valence classification task using masked priming. Positive (happy) and negative (angry) face targets were preceded by masked repetition or valence primes with neutral face baselines. In Experiment 1, 30 younger and 30 older adults were tested with 50 ms primes. Younger adults showed repetition priming for both positive and negative targets. Older adults showed repetition priming for positive but not negative targets. Neither group showed valence priming. In Experiment 2, 30 older and 29 younger adults were tested with longer duration primes. Younger adults showed repetition priming for both positive and negative emotions, and no valence priming. Older adults only showed repetition and valence priming for positive targets. We proposed older adults' lack of angry face priming was due to an early attention orienting strategy favouring happy expressions at the expense of angry ones

Audiology · Cognition · Developmental psychology · Emotional valence · Implicit memory · Lexical decision task · Negative priming · Perception · Repetition priming · Response priming · Selective attention · Young adult · Face Recognition and Perception · Multisensory perception and integration · Neuroscience · Psychology · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment

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