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. 2009 Aug;30(8):1305-13.
doi: 10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2007.11.007. Epub 2007 Dec 21.

Age differences in perception and awareness of emotion

Michelle B Neiss  1 , Lindsey A Leigland, Nichole E Carlson, Jeri S Janowsky
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Age differences in perception and awareness of emotion

Michelle B Neiss et al. Neurobiol Aging. 2009 Aug.

Abstract

We investigated the effects of age and gender on emotional perception and physiology using electrodermal skin conductance response (SCR) and examined whether SCR is related to subjective perceptions of emotional pictures. Older adults found pictures to be more positive and arousing than younger participants. Older women rated pictures more extremely at both ends of the valence continuum: they rated positive pictures more positively and negative pictures more negatively. Elders were less likely to show measurable SCRs. However, magnitude of SCRs when a response occurred did not differ between young and old. Subjective ratings of emotion correlated with physiological responses in younger participants, but they were unrelated in older participants. Thus, in older adults the perception of emotional events was disconnected from the physiological state induced by emotion.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Arousal Ratings by Age and Gender
Older adults rated positive pictures more arousing than both negative and neutral pictures. Younger adults rated positive pictures as more arousing than neutral pictures only. In addition, older adults rated positive pictures as more arousing than did younger adults. Error bars indicate SEM.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Valence Ratings by Age and Gender
Older women rated negative pictures more negatively, and positive pictures more positively, than other groups. Error bars indicate SEM.
Figure 3
Figure 3. SCR by Age and Gender
Young men had higher SCRs to negative and neutral pictures as compared to young women. Error bars indicate SEM of group averaged responses.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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