Binocular rivalry: A window into emotional processing in aging.

Bannerman, Rachel L.; Regener, Paula; Sahraie, Arash

doi:10.1037/a0022029

Cited by 19 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 70 publications

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“…These results might be due to different emotion regulation strategies employed by younger and older adults. Older adults are more likely than younger adults to ignore negative stimuli, while enhancing attention to and processing of positive stimuli (Bannerman, Regener, & Sahraie, 2011; Emery & Hess, 2011). In contrast, compared with older adults, younger adults are better at reappraising negative emotional stimuli to reduce their emotional impact (Opitz, Rauch, Terry, & Urry, 2012).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Amygdala Functional Connectivity with Medial Prefrontal Cortex at Rest Predicts the Positivity Effect in Older Adults' Memory

Sakaki¹,

Nga²,

Mather³

2013

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

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As people get older, they tend to remember more positive than negative information. This age-by-valence interaction has been called ‘positivity effect.’ The current study addressed the hypotheses that baseline functional connectivity at rest is predictive of older adults’ brain activity when learning emotional information and their positivity effect in memory. Using fMRI, we examined the relationship among resting-state functional connectivity, subsequent brain activity when learning emotional faces, and individual differences in the positivity effect (the relative tendency to remember faces expressing positive versus negative emotions). Consistent with our hypothesis, older adults with a stronger positivity effect had increased functional coupling between amygdala and medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) during rest. In contrast, younger adults did not show the association between resting connectivity and memory positivity. A similar age-by-memory positivity interaction was also found when learning emotional faces. That is, memory positivity in older adults was associated with a) enhanced MPFC activity when learning emotional faces and b) increased negative functional coupling between amygdala and MPFC when learning negative faces. In contrast, memory positivity in younger adults was related to neither enhanced MPFC activity to emotional faces, nor MPFC-amygdala connectivity to negative faces. Furthermore, stronger MPFC-amygdala connectivity during rest was predictive of subsequent greater MPFC activity when learning emotional faces. Thus, emotion-memory interaction in older adults depends not only on the task-related brain activity but also on the baseline functional connectivity.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Amygdala Functional Connectivity with Medial Prefrontal Cortex at Rest Predicts the Positivity Effect in Older Adults' Memory

Sakaki¹,

Nga²,

Mather³

2013

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

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“…This in turn has been argued to result in increased attention to, and memory for, positive information, and/or avoidance of negative information (for a review see Mather & Carstensen, 2005). Although older adults' positivity can sometimes be witnessed under conditions of limited cognitive control (e.g., Allard & Isaacowitz, 2008;Bannerman et al, 2011), it is thought mainly to reflect a consciously controlled preference (Mather & Carstensen, 2005), and thus, would be expected to occur primarily in response to supraliminal rather than subliminal cues.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Age differences in conscious versus subconscious social perception: The influence of face age and valence on gaze following.

Bailey¹,

Slessor²,

Rendell³

et al. 2014

Psychology and Aging

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Gaze following is the primary means of establishing joint attention with others and is subject to age-related decline. In addition, young but not older adults experience an own-age bias in gaze following. The current research assessed the effects of subconscious processing on these agerelated differences. Participants responded to targets that were either congruent or incongruent with the direction of gaze displayed in supraliminal and subliminal images of young and older faces. These faces displayed either neutral (Study 1), or happy and fearful (Study 2) expressions.In Studies 1 and 2, both age groups demonstrated gaze-directed attention by responding faster to targets that were congruent as opposed to incongruent with gaze-cues. In Study 1, subliminal stimuli did not attenuate the age-related decline in gaze-cuing, but did result in an own-age bias among older participants. In Study 2, gaze-cuing was reduced for older relative to young adults in response to supraliminal stimuli, and this could not be attributed to reduced visual acuity or age group differences in the perceived emotional intensity of the gaze-cue faces. Moreover, there were no age differences in gaze-cuing when responding to subliminal faces that were emotionally arousing. In addition, older adults demonstrated an own-age bias for both conscious and subconscious gaze-cuing when faces expressed happiness but not fear. We discuss growing evidence for age-related preservation of subconscious relative to conscious social perception, as well as an interaction between face age and valence in social perception.Keywords: gaze-directed attention, subconscious processing, own-age bias; emotion; aging Word count: 8,263Running head: AGING AND GAZE-DIRECTION ATTENTION 3 Age differences in conscious versus subconscious social perception: The influence of face age and valence on gaze followingJoint attention is a basic component of social perception that allows us to identify where or what someone is attending to, and to orient to the same thing. It not only drives simple everyday social communication, but is also a critical precursor to more complex social perceptual abilities such as making inferences about the mental states of others (i.e., theory of mind) and comprehending their emotions (Charman et al., 2000). The primary means of establishing joint attention with others is by following their gaze (Driver et al., 1999). Indeed, those with reduced capacity for emotion recognition and theory of mind, such as older adults (for reviews see, Henry, Phillips, Ruffman, & Bailey, 2013;Moran, 2013;Ruffman, Henry, Livingstone, & Phillips, 2008), are also less adept at following gaze-cues (Slessor, Laird, Phillips, Bull, & Filippou, 2010;Slessor, Phillips, & Bull, 2008). While both young and older adults successfully follow the gaze of others, demonstrating a gaze-congruity effect (i.e., responding more quickly to target locations that are predicted by gaze direction compared to those that are incongruent with gaze-cues; Driver et al., 1999), this congruit...

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“…A study examining age differences in binocular rivalry effects for emotional faces also revealed that older adults suppress processing of angry faces and enhance processing of happy faces. 59 In this study, a picture of a house was presented to one eye and a picture of a face was presented to the participant's other eye on each trial. Under these conditions, people perceive the two images alternating, as they compete in the brain for perceptual dominance.…”

Section: Downregulating Negative Affect May Be More Of a Default Modementioning

confidence: 99%

The emotion paradox in the aging brain

Mather

2012

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

293

240

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This paper reviews age differences in emotion processing and how they may relate to age-related changes in the brain. Compared with younger adults, older adults react less to negative situations, ignore irrelevant negative stimuli better, and remember relatively more positive than negative information. Older adults’ ability to insulate their thoughts and emotional reactions from negative situations is likely due to a number of factors, such as being less influenced by interoceptive cues, selecting different emotion regulation strategies, having less age-related decline in prefrontal regions associated with emotional control than in other prefrontal regions, and engaging in emotion regulation strategies as a default mode in their everyday lives. Healthy older adults’ avoidance of processing negative stimuli may contribute to their well-maintained emotional well-being. However, when cardiovascular disease leads to additional prefrontal white matter damage, older adults have fewer cognitive control mechanisms available to regulate their emotions, making them more vulnerable to depression. In general, while age-related changes in the brain help shape emotional experience, shifts in preferred strategies and goal priorities are also important influences.

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Binocular rivalry: A window into emotional processing in aging.

Cited by 19 publications

References 70 publications

Amygdala Functional Connectivity with Medial Prefrontal Cortex at Rest Predicts the Positivity Effect in Older Adults' Memory

Amygdala Functional Connectivity with Medial Prefrontal Cortex at Rest Predicts the Positivity Effect in Older Adults' Memory

Age differences in conscious versus subconscious social perception: The influence of face age and valence on gaze following.

The emotion paradox in the aging brain

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