Department of Psychology, Cleveland State University, Clevelan, USA.
Neuropsychol Dev Cogn B Aging Neuropsychol Cogn. 2020 Jul;27(4):595-616. doi: 10.1080/13825585.2019.1657556. Epub 2019 Aug 27.
Research continues to assess potential boundary conditions for the age-related positivity effect in emotional information processing. Beyond the valence and arousal characteristics of a stimulus, other features may play a role in the manifestation of positivity effects. Differences between abstract and concrete words (i.e., the level of imageability, presence of affective content) may lead to differences in downstream processing outcomes. The present study examined whether additional features of word stimuli, beyond valence and arousal, could influence the emergence of age-related positivity in episodic memory. Fifty-two younger adults and 51 older adults completed a categorization task where they separated a series of positive, negative, and neutral words into "abstract" or "concrete" categories. A surprise recognition task followed after a short delay. Results revealed a three-way Age × Valence × Word Type interaction. No age differences in overall recognition was observed for concrete words, regardless of emotion; however, for abstract words, an Age × Valence interaction emerged whereby older adults recognized more positive than negative words, while valence differences were less pronounced among younger adults. Concrete words were remembered better than abstract words by both age groups, regardless of valence. Conversely, preferential processing appeared to occur for positive abstract words, especially for older adults. We contend that these results provide further evidence of the top-down and controlled nature of age-related positivity effects in episodic memory.
研究继续评估情绪信息处理中与年龄相关的正性效应的潜在边界条件。除了刺激的效价和唤醒特征外，其他特征也可能在正性效应的表现中起作用。抽象词和具体词之间的差异（即形象化程度、情感内容的存在）可能导致下游处理结果的差异。本研究考察了词刺激的其他特征（效价和唤醒之外）是否会影响情节记忆中与年龄相关的正性。52 名年轻成年人和 51 名年长成年人完成了一项分类任务，他们将一系列积极、消极和中性的词分为“抽象”或“具体”类别。短暂延迟后进行了惊喜识别任务。结果显示出年龄×效价×词类的三向交互作用。对于具体词，无论情绪如何，老年人和年轻人的整体识别都没有年龄差异；然而，对于抽象词，出现了年龄×效价的交互作用，老年人识别积极词比消极词更多，而年轻人的效价差异则不明显。具体词比抽象词更受两个年龄组的记忆，无论效价如何。相反，对于积极的抽象词，老年人似乎更喜欢优先处理。我们认为，这些结果为情节记忆中与年龄相关的正性效应的自上而下和受控制的性质提供了进一步的证据。
