Aging and motivated cognition: the positivity effect in attention and memory

Mather, Mara; Carstensen, Laura L.

doi:10.1016/j.tics.2005.08.005

Cited by 1,550 publications

(1,584 citation statements)

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“…In addition, this association among negative self-assessments, personality, and stronger engagement of these brain networks is interesting in light of the considerable research showing that younger adults tend to have more negative affect than older adults (e.g., Carstensen, et al, 2011;Stone, et al, 2010), and our finding that older adults have weaker activation and functional connectivity in the DN. That is, if older adults modulate their emotional responses to be more positive, in line with their motivational goals Mather & Carstensen, 2005), and activity in the DN is associated with cognitive processes leading to greater negativity, then reduced DN engagement and/or functional connectivity during social cognitive tasks may be a reflection of these goals. It should be noted, however that these interpretations of the relation between DN activity and self-relevant judgments are tentative, given that older adults did not show any significant associations among the brain measures and behavior.…”

Section: Correlations Between Brain and Behavioral Indicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although this work suggests that some aspects of self-reference are not markedly altered as we age, some of the other types of related processing, mentioned above, are influenced by aging. For example, there is considerable evidence that older adults show an increased sensitivity to emotionally positive information, relative to younger adults' focus on negative information, the so-called "positivity bias" or "positivity effect" (e.g., Carstensen, Fung, & Charles, 2003;Ebner, Riediger, & Lindenberger, 2009;Isaacowitz, Allard, Murphy, & Schlangel, 2009;Mather & Carstensen, 2005). This difference in emotional biases is seen in attention and memory (Charles, Mather, & Carstensen, 2003;Grady, Hongwanishkul, Keightley, Lee, & Hasher, 2007;Spaniol, Voss, & Grady, 2008), and is thought to reflect a difference in motivational goals as the end of life approaches .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Age differences in default and reward networks during processing of personally relevant information

Grady

Grigg

2012

Neuropsychologia

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We recently found activity in default mode and reward-related regions during self-relevant tasks in young adults. Here we examine the effect of aging on engagement of the default network (DN) and reward network (RN) during these tasks. Previous studies have shown reduced engagement of the DN and reward areas in older adults, but the influence of age on these circuits during selfrelevant tasks has not been examined. The tasks involved judging personality traits about one's self or a well known other person. There were no age differences in reaction time on the tasks but older adults had more positive Self and Other judgments, whereas younger adults had more negative judgments. Both groups had increased DN and RN activity during the self-relevant tasks, relative to non-self tasks, but this increase was reduced in older compared to young adults. Functional connectivity of both networks during the tasks was weaker in the older relative to younger adults. Intrinsic functional connectivity, measured at rest, also was weaker in the older adults in the DN, but not in the RN. These results suggest that, in younger adults, the processing of personally relevant information involves robust activation of and functional connectivity within these two networks, in line with current models that emphasize strong links between the self and reward. The finding that older adults had more positive judgments, but weaker engagement and less consistent functional connectivity in these networks, suggests potential brain mechanisms for the "positivity bias" with aging.

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Section: Correlations Between Brain and Behavioral Indicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Age differences in default and reward networks during processing of personally relevant information

Grady

Grigg

2012

Neuropsychologia

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“…For example, McKay and Dennett (2009) have argued that ungrounded or false beliefs are adaptive, a conclusion that has implications for false (or ungrounded) memories. For example, the positivity bias in autobiographical memory, a tendency to accentuate the positive aspects of personal experiences when (inaccurately or falsely) remembering the past, has been linked to enhanced emotional regulation (Mather & Cartensen, 2005). That this positivity bias drives false recollection and not just selective remembering, has been amply shown in recent work by Fernandes, Ross, Wiegand, and Schryer (2008).…”

Section: Design Materials and Proceduresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Can false memories prime problem solutions?

et al. 2010

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This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Abstract Previous research has suggested that false memories can prime performance on related implicit and explicit memory tasks. The present research examined whether false memories can also be used to prime higher order cognitive processes, namely, insight-based problem solving. Participants were asked to solve a number of compound remote associate task (CRAT) problems, half of which had been primed by the presentation of Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM) lists whose critical lure was also the solution to the problem. The results showed that when the critical lure (a) was falsely recalled, CRAT problems were solved more often and significantly faster than problems that were not primed by a DRM list and (b) was not falsely recalled, CRAT problem solution rates and times were no different than when there was no DRM priming. A second experiment demonstrated that these outcomes were not a simple artifact of the inclusion of a recall test prior to the problem-solving task. The implications of these results are discussed with regard to the previous literature on priming and the adaptive function of false memories. Permanent repository link

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“…In young adults, distinct but adjacent regions of medial prefrontal cortex respond to the degree of self-descriptiveness (i.e., medial prefrontal) and the valence of information (i.e., ventral anterior cingulate cortex; Moran et al, 2006). Because emotional information differentially captures the attention of young and elderly (Charles, Mather, & Carstensen, 2003;Kensinger, Piguet, Krendl, & Corkin, 2005;Mather & Carstensen, 2005), comparisons of valence allow us to assess the degree to which emotion contributes to self-referencing across the age groups.…”

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confidence: 99%

Aging, self-referencing, and medial prefrontal cortex

Gutchess

Kensinger

Schacter

2007

Social Neuroscience

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The lateral prefrontal cortex undergoes both structural and functional changes with healthy aging. In contrast, there is little structural change in the medial prefrontal cortex, but relatively little is known about the functional changes to this region with age. Using an event-related fMRI design, we investigated the response of medial prefrontal cortex during self-referencing in order to compare age groups on a task that young and elderly perform similarly and that is known to actively engage the region in young adults. Nineteen young (M age023) and seventeen elderly (M age072) judged whether adjectives described themselves, another person, or were presented in upper case. We assessed the overlap in activations between young and elderly for the self-reference effect (self vs. other person), and found that both groups engage medial prefrontal cortex and mid-cingulate during self-referencing. The only cerebral differences between the groups in self versus other personality assessment were found in somatosensory and motorrelated areas. In contrast, age-related modulations were found in the cerebral network recruited for emotional valence processing. Elderly (but not young) showed increased activity in the dorsal prefrontal cortex for positive relative to negative items, which could reflect an increase in controlled processing of positive information for elderly adults.

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Aging and motivated cognition: the positivity effect in attention and memory

Cited by 1,550 publications

References 63 publications

Age differences in default and reward networks during processing of personally relevant information

Age differences in default and reward networks during processing of personally relevant information

Can false memories prime problem solutions?

Aging, self-referencing, and medial prefrontal cortex

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