Attentional Bias for Emotional Information in Older Adults: The Role of Emotion and Future Time Perspective

Abstract

ObjectivesResearch suggests that older adults display a positivity bias at the level of information processing. However, because studies investigating attentional bias for emotional information in older adults have produced mixed findings, research identifying inter-individual differences that may explain these inconsistent results is necessary. Therefore, we investigated whether mood, symptoms of depression, symptoms of anxiety and future time perspective are related to attentional bias in older adults.MethodThirty-seven healthy older adults and 25 healthy middle-aged adults completed questionnaires to assess mood, symptoms of depression, symptoms of anxiety and future time perspective. Attentional bias towards happy, sad and neutral information was measured using a modified exogenous cueing paradigm with long cue presentations, to measure maintained attention versus avoidance of emotional stimuli.ResultsOlder adults showed attentional avoidance for all emotional faces, whereas no attentional biases were found in the middle-aged group. Moreover, in the older adult group, avoidance for negative information was related to anxiety. Future time perspective was unrelated to attentional bias.DiscussionThese findings suggest that anxiety may lead to inter-individual differences in attentional bias in older adults, and that avoidance from negative information may be an emotion regulation strategy.

Resilience at Information Processing Level in Older Adults: Maintained Attention for Happy Faces when Positive Mood is Low

“…Older adults who reported less positive mood showed more maintained attention towards positive information. In line with previous findings indicating a more pronounced positivity effect in older adults with elevated negative mood (e.g., Demeyer & de Raedt, 2013, these results show that lower positive mood is related to a larger positivity effect. In this study, we found no relationship between attention and negative mood, which is not surprising given that our manipulation reduced the variability in negative mood.…”

“…First, we explored the influence of the relaxation manipulation on attentional bias. If the positivity effect is most pronounced during a negative mood context (Demeyer & De Raedt, 2013;Isaacowitz et al, 2008), we might anticipate to find group differences in attentional bias, showing less maintained attention to positive information or less attentional avoidance of negative information in the relaxation group compared to the control group. Secondly, we also examined the direct relationship between inter-individual differences in mood and attentional bias over the whole group to verify whether participants scoring lower on positive mood and/or higher on negative mood would show more attentional bias towards positive information and less attention towards negative information.…”

Older adults' attentional deployment: Differential gaze patterns for different negative mood states

“…Although former studies have shown that the positivity effect reflects an attention bias away from sad faces (e.g. Demeyer & De Raedt, 2013, Mather & Carstensen, 2003, there are also several studies in which a bias away from angry faces was found (e.g. Isaacowitz, Wadlinger, Goren, & Wilson, 2006, Mather & Carstensen, 2003.…”

“…increased nervous mood, decreased calm mood) would have effects on specific attentional components underlying the positivity effect. First, based on initial evidence from Demeyer and De Raedt (2013), we expected that induced mood changes would be related to faster disengagement from negative stimuli. Second, we also explored whether induced mood changes would be related to faster attentional engagement towards and slower attentional disengagement from positive EMOTION REGULATION IN OLDER ADULTS 8 stimuli.…”

“…Demeyer and De Raedt (2013) found that inter-individual differences in negative emotions in older adults were related to attentional biases measured by an exogenous cueing task. Older adults who reported higher levels of anxiety showed the largest positivity effect, as evidenced by faster attentional avoidance of negative stimuli.…”