Avoiding Threat in Late Adulthood: Testing Two Life Span Theories of Emotion

The purpose of the present research was to explore the time course of age-related attentional biases and the role of emotion regulation as a potential mediator of older adults' performance in an emotion dot probe task. In two studies, younger and older adults (N = 80) completed a visual probe detection task, which presented happy, angry, and sad facial expressions. Across both studies, age influenced attentional responses to angry faces. Results indicated a bias away from angry-related facial emotion information occurring relatively late in attention. Age effects were not attributable to decreasing information processing speed or visuoperceptual function. Current results demonstrated that an age-related attentional preference away from angry facial cues was mediated by efforts to suppress emotion. Findings are discussed in relation to current theories of sociocognitive aging.     

Effects of age and emotional intensity on the recognition of facial emotion

Older adults have a specific deficit in their ability to identify some negative facial emotions. The present study investigated the influence of intensity of expression on 40 young and 40 older adults' recognition of facial expressions of emotion. Older adults showed no impairment in the perception of low-intensity subtle expressions of happiness, surprise, and disgust. However, older adults were worse at recognizing all intensities of sadness, anger, and fear, with the greatest impairment at 50% intensity. Observed age differences were not influenced by covarying general facial processing skills, but were substantially reduced when a measure of general cognitive functioning was covaried. The current study suggests that age differences in identifying facial expressions of emotion are not caused by decreasing visual perceptual abilities, but may partially overlap with general cognitive changes.     

Avoiding threat in late adulthood: testing two life span theories of emotion

The purpose of the present research was to explore the time course of age-related attentional biases and the role of emotion regulation as a potential mediator of older adults' performance in an emotion dot probe task. In two studies, younger and older adults (N?=?80) completed a visual probe detection task, which presented happy, angry, and sad facial expressions. Across both studies, age influenced attentional responses to angry faces. Results indicated a bias away from angry-related facial emotion information occurring relatively late in attention. Age effects were not attributable to decreasing information processing speed or visuoperceptual function. Current results demonstrated that an age-related attentional preference away from angry facial cues was mediated by efforts to suppress emotion. Findings are discussed in relation to current theories of sociocognitive aging.     

Evaluation of α-synuclein as a novel cerebrospinal fluid biomarker in different forms of prion diseases

Introduction

Accurate diagnosis of prion diseases and discrimination from alternative dementias gain importance in the clinical routine, but partial overlap in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers impedes absolute discrimination in the differential diagnostic context.

Specificity of age differences in emotion regulation

Objectives: The present study attempts to extend previous research examining differences between young and older adults in emotion regulation, by investigating age differences across a great range of facets of emotion regulation.

Method: Young (n = 40) and older adults (n = 40) completed the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) and self-report measures of anxiety and depression.

Results: Whereas young and older adults did not differ in terms of acceptance and awareness of emotional responses, younger adults scored higher compared to older overall, indicating greater emotion regulation difficulties. Older adults reported greater ability in engaging in goal-directed behaviour, and refraining from impulsive emotional responses. Increasing age was associated with greater access to emotion regulation strategies and greater clarity of emotions.

Conclusion: Overall, the present cross-sectional results suggest a general stability in late adulthood in several aspects of emotion regulation, suggesting specific adaptations with increasing age. Findings provided support for the construct validity of the DERS and indicated that the relationship between age and emotion regulation is influenced by verbal ability. Current results extend the focus of age-related differences in emotion regulatory control to several theoretically defined forms of emotion regulation.