Joubert Clémence, Davidson Patrick S R, Chainay Hanna
a Laboratoire d'Étude des Mécanismes Cognitifs , Université Lumière Lyon 2 , Lyon , France.
b School of Psychology , University of Ottawa , Ottawa , Canada.
Exp Aging Res. 2018 Oct-Dec;44(5):455-468. doi: 10.1080/0361073X.2018.1521498.
Typically, positive and negative emotional items are easier to remember than neutral ones. Charles, Mather, and Carstensen (2003) reported that older adults preferentially remember positive items, but this age-related "positivity effect" has not been replicated consistently.
We conducted a close replication of Charles et al.'s study to verify that their method yields a clear positivity effect in older adults relative to the young. We also examined the role of attention, which has been argued to influence the presence of the positivity effect in older adults. We used a method similar to Charles et al. (2003). Young and older adults recalled pictures that had been encoded under full or divided attention.
Older adults showed a positivity effect, but only under full attention. Young adults did not show any hint of a positivity effect, under either of the encoding conditions. The finding of a positivity effect in older but not young adults replicates the original report from Charles et al. (2003). The attention manipulation results suggest that when the positivity effect occurs in older adults' memory, it is attributable at least in part to cognitive control during encoding. Key terms: Emotional Enhancement of Memory-Divided attention-Aging.
通常，积极和消极情绪的项目比中性项目更容易被记住。查尔斯、马瑟和卡斯滕森（2003年）报告称，老年人优先记住积极项目，但这种与年龄相关的“积极效应”并未得到一致的重复验证。
我们对查尔斯等人的研究进行了严格的重复验证，以证实他们的方法在老年人相对于年轻人中能产生明显的积极效应。我们还研究了注意力的作用，有人认为注意力会影响老年人中积极效应的存在。我们使用了与查尔斯等人（2003年）相似的方法。年轻人和老年人回忆在全神贯注或注意力分散状态下编码的图片。
老年人表现出积极效应，但仅在全神贯注的情况下。在两种编码条件下，年轻人都没有表现出任何积极效应的迹象。老年人而非年轻人中存在积极效应这一发现重复了查尔斯等人（2003年）的原始报告。注意力操纵结果表明，当积极效应出现在老年人的记忆中时，至少部分归因于编码过程中的认知控制。关键词：记忆的情绪增强-注意力分散-衰老
