TY - JOUR
T1 - Decline or improvement?. Age-related differences in facial expression recognition
AU - Suzuki, Atsunobu
AU - Hoshino, Takahiro
AU - Shigemasu, Kazuo
AU - Kawamura, Mitsuru
N1 - Funding Information:
We gratefully acknowledge Arvid Kappas, Andy Calder, and the three anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on the earlier version of the manuscript. We would like to thank H. Yamada and N. Watanabe for allowing us to use the FIND. We would also like to thank N. Suzuki and T. Ogawa for granting us permission to use the General Affect Scales. Portions of this work were presented at the 6th Tsukuba International Conference on Memory—Memory and Emotion, Tsukuba, Japan, and at the 13th meeting of the Japan Society for Research on Emotions, Nagoya, Japan. The first author was supported by the 2004 research grant from Meiji Yasuda Mental Health Foundation. The last author was supported by the Showa University Grant-in-Aid for Innovative Collaborative Research Projects, Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology (CREST) and a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Priority Areas (17022035) from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.
PY - 2007/1
Y1 - 2007/1
N2 - We examined age-related differences in facial expression recognition in association with potentially interfering variables such as general cognitive ability (verbal and visuospatial abilities), face recognition ability, and the experiences of positive and negative emotions. Participants comprised 34 older (aged 62-81 years) and 34 younger (aged 18-25 years) healthy Japanese adults. The results showed not only age-related decline in sadness recognition but also age-related improvement in disgust recognition. Among other variables, visuospatial ability was moderately related to facial expression recognition in general, and the experience of negative emotions was related to sadness recognition. Consequently, age-related decline in sadness recognition was statistically explained by age-related decrease in the experience of negative emotions. On the other hand, age-related improvement in disgust recognition was not explained by the interfering variables, and it reflected a higher tendency in the younger participants to mistake disgust for anger. Possible mechanisms are discussed in terms of neurobiological and socio-environmental factors.
AB - We examined age-related differences in facial expression recognition in association with potentially interfering variables such as general cognitive ability (verbal and visuospatial abilities), face recognition ability, and the experiences of positive and negative emotions. Participants comprised 34 older (aged 62-81 years) and 34 younger (aged 18-25 years) healthy Japanese adults. The results showed not only age-related decline in sadness recognition but also age-related improvement in disgust recognition. Among other variables, visuospatial ability was moderately related to facial expression recognition in general, and the experience of negative emotions was related to sadness recognition. Consequently, age-related decline in sadness recognition was statistically explained by age-related decrease in the experience of negative emotions. On the other hand, age-related improvement in disgust recognition was not explained by the interfering variables, and it reflected a higher tendency in the younger participants to mistake disgust for anger. Possible mechanisms are discussed in terms of neurobiological and socio-environmental factors.
KW - Aging
KW - Anger
KW - Disgust
KW - Facial expression recognition
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U2 - 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2006.07.003
DO - 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2006.07.003
M3 - Article
C2 - 16934918
AN - SCOPUS:33751168474
SN - 0019-493X
VL - 74
SP - 75
EP - 84
JO - Biological Psychology
JF - Biological Psychology
IS - 1
ER -