Mather Mara, Carstensen Laura L
University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA.
Psychol Sci. 2003 Sep;14(5):409-15. doi: 10.1111/1467-9280.01455.
We examined age differences in attention to and memory for faces expressing sadness, anger, and happiness. Participants saw a pair of faces, one emotional and one neutral, and then a dot probe that appeared in the location of one of the faces. In two experiments, older adults responded faster to the dot if it was presented on the same side as a neutral face than if it was presented on the same side as a negative face. Younger adults did not exhibit this attentional bias. Interactions of age and valence were also found for memory for the faces, with older adults remembering positive better than negative faces. These findings reveal that in their initial attention, older adults avoid negative information. This attentional bias is consistent with older adults' generally better emotional well-being and their tendency to remember negative less well than positive information.
我们研究了对表达悲伤、愤怒和快乐的面孔的注意力及记忆力方面的年龄差异。参与者会看到一对面孔，一张带有情绪，一张为中性面孔，然后会出现一个点探测，其出现在其中一张面孔的位置。在两项实验中，如果点探测出现在与中性面孔同侧，老年人的反应速度会比出现在与负面面孔同侧时更快。年轻人则没有表现出这种注意力偏差。在面孔记忆方面也发现了年龄与效价的交互作用，老年人对正面面孔的记忆优于负面面孔。这些发现表明，在最初的注意力方面，老年人会避开负面信息。这种注意力偏差与老年人总体上更好的情绪幸福感以及他们对负面信息的记忆不如正面信息的倾向是一致的。
