A Comparison of Younger and Older Adults' Self-Assessment Manikin Ratings of Affective Pictures

Abstract

Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM) ratings were used to examine whether groups of 21 younger (M age = 20.02 years, SD = 2.28) and 21 older (M age = 66.26 years, SD = 5.64) adults had similar affective experiences to pictures from the International Affective Picture System (Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert, 1997). The psychometrics of the SAM valence and arousal scales were also compared across age groups. Internal consistency reliability (Cronbach's alpha) was similar for younger and older adults, where both groups made less consistent valence ratings than arousal ratings. Both groups differed from the norms for valence for pleasant pictures, but were no more different from each other than they were from the norms. Age group differences were most evident in the pleasant region of the bivariate valence by arousal affective space, where younger adults found pleasant-aroused pictures to be more pleasant and arousing than older adults did. We suggest that this age group difference could be explained by greater affect intensity and surgency for the younger group and greater emotional control and leveling of positive affect for the older group.

Lisbon Symbol Database (LSD): Subjective norms for 600 symbols

“…That is, stimuli that are more extreme in positive or negative valence are also rated as being more arousing (Backs, da Silva, & Han, 2005;Ito, Cacioppo, & Lang, 1998;Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert, 1998;Libkuman, Otani, Kern, Viger, & Novak, 2007; but for exceptions, see Grühn &Scheibe, 2008, andRibeiro, Pompéia, &Bueno, 2005). In the present study, we asked participants to evaluate the extent to which the symbol refers to something arousing/exciting or passive/calm (1 = Refers to something very passive/calm, 7 = Refers to something very arousing/exciting).…”

Age Differences in Arousal, Perception of Affective Pictures, and Emotional Memory Enhancement: Appraisal, Electrodermal Activity, and Imaging Data

“…Another methodological issue is habituation that may affect subjective ratings. Repeated exposure to the same pictorial stimuli prior to assessment may attenuate the subjectively experienced emotionality and may level out potential age-related differences in subjective ratings (Backs, da Silva, Han, 2005;Denburg, Buchanan, Tranel, & Adolphs, 2003). Age-related differences in rating may also be due to habituation to stimuli over time.…”

“…Reports on physiological measures and subjective ratings of emotional stimuli are mixed (Smith, Hillman, & Duley, 2005). Studies have reported lesser (Mather et al, 2004), greater (Smith el al., 2005), as well as equal (Backs, da Silva, & Han, 2005;Denburg, Buchanan, Tranel, & Adolphs, 2003) emotional responses in older compared to younger adults. In general, aging is associated with attenuated physiological activity.…”

“…Whereas some studies have not found any difference in subjective ratings between older and younger adults (Backs, da Silva, & Han, 2005;Denburg, Buchanan, Tranel, & Adolphs, 2003), there is at least one study where older adults demonstrated lower arousal ratings of negative pictures compared to younger participants (Mather et al, 2004). The participants (18-29 and 70-90 years respectively) were asked to rate how excited or calm they felt viewing each picture.…”

Image-Word Pairing-Congruity Effect on Affective Responses

“…This study applied a pencil-and-paper version of the Self-Assessment-Manikin (SAM) [16], a non-verbal self-report instrument whose main attribute is its reduction of the cognitive processing bias when measuring Type 1 affective responses. Numerous studies have proven the validity and reliability of the SAM method [18,19,20]. SAM is a 9-point picture-scale that directly measures the two major affective dimensions 4 : pleasure and arousal [14].…”