Department of Psychology, Northeastern University.
College of Computer and Information Science, Northeastern University.
Psychol Aging. 2018 Mar;33(2):361-372. doi: 10.1037/pag0000231.
Previous studies of attentional deployment to a single stream of experimenter-selected affective stimuli have found that compared to younger adults, older adults attend relatively more to positive and less to negative stimuli, and this can relate to better mood for them. Past studies of situation selection have yielded a contrasting picture of age similarity. In everyday life, attentional deployment is fundamentally and dynamically related to situation selection, but prior studies have investigated them only in isolation. We present new research using mobile eye tracking to test for age differences in selections of emotional stimuli and attention to self-selected choices after a negative mood induction. Younger, middle-aged, and older individuals (N = 150) were either instructed to specifically try to regulate their mood state or not before having their selections, attention, and mood recorded. We used a database-oriented method to analyze fixations to positive, negative, and neutral videos once selected. Findings suggested more similarities than differences among age groups in what material was selected, how participants attended to selected material, and how their choices and attention predicted mood. Situation selection also had a more consistent relationship with mood than attentional deployment. These results suggest that age differences in attention are less apparent when participants have flexibility to avoid and choose stimuli than when viewing a predetermined fixed set of stimuli. Thus, emotion regulation strategies of selection and attention may show more age similarities when they interact than when studied in isolation. (PsycINFO Database Record
先前关于注意力对实验者选择的单一情感刺激流的分配的研究发现，与年轻成年人相比，老年人相对更多地关注积极刺激，较少关注消极刺激，这对他们的情绪有益。过去关于情境选择的研究得出了一个与年龄相似性相反的结果。在日常生活中，注意力的分配与情境选择从根本上和动态上相关，但之前的研究仅孤立地对它们进行了研究。我们使用移动眼动追踪技术进行了新的研究，以测试在消极情绪诱导后，个体对情感刺激的选择和对自我选择的注意是否存在年龄差异。年轻、中年和老年个体（N=150）在进行选择、注意和情绪记录之前，被指示特别尝试调节他们的情绪状态或不调节。我们使用面向数据库的方法分析了选定的积极、消极和中性视频的注视点。研究结果表明，在选择的材料、参与者对所选材料的关注以及他们的选择和关注如何预测情绪方面，年龄组之间的相似之处多于差异。情境选择与情绪的关系也比注意力分配更一致。这些结果表明，当参与者具有避免和选择刺激的灵活性时，与观看预定的固定刺激集相比，注意力的年龄差异不太明显。因此，当选择和注意的情绪调节策略相互作用时，它们的年龄相似性可能会更多，而不是孤立地进行研究。
