Vieillard Sandrine, Pinabiaux Charlotte, Bigand Emmanuel
Unité DysCo, Fonctionnement et Dysfonctionnement Cognitifs: Les âges de la vie, Université Paris Nanterre, Nanterre, France.
Unité LEAD, Laboratoire d'Etude de l'Apprentissages et du Développement, UMR CNRS 5022, Université Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, Dijon, France.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2020 Jun 25;14:216. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2020.00216. eCollection 2020.
Past empirical studies have suggested that older adults preferentially use gaze-based mood regulation to lessen their negative experiences while watching an emotional scene. This preference for a low cognitively demanding regulatory strategy leaves open the question of whether the effortful processing of a more cognitively demanding reappraisal task is really spared from the general age-related decline. Because it does not allow perceptual attention to be redirected away from the emotional source, music provides an ideal way to address this question. The goal of our study was to examine the affective, behavioral, physiological, and cognitive outcomes of positive and detached reappraisal in response to negative musical emotion in younger and older adults. Participants first simply listened to a series of threatening musical excerpts and were then instructed to either positively reappraise or to detach themselves from the emotion elicited by music. Findings showed that, when instructed to simply listen to threatening music, older adults reported a more positive feeling associated with a smaller SCL in comparison with their younger counterparts. When implementing positive and detached reappraisal, participants showed more positive and more aroused emotional experiences, whatever the age group. We also found that the instruction to intentionally reappraise negative emotions results in a lesser cognitive cost for older adults in comparison with younger adults. Taken together, these data suggest that, compared to younger adults, older adults engage in spontaneous downregulation of negative affect and successfully implement downregulation instructions. This extends previous findings and brings compelling evidence that, even when auditory attention cannot be redirected away from the emotional source, older adults are still more effective at regulating emotions. Taking into account the age-associated decline in executive functioning, our results suggest that the working memory task could have distracted older adults from the reminiscences of the threat-evoking music, thus resulting in an emotional downregulation. Hence, even if they were instructed to implement reappraisal strategies, older adults might prefer distraction over engagement in reappraisal. This is congruent with the idea that, although getting older, people are more likely to be distracted from a negative source of emotion to maintain their well-being.
以往的实证研究表明，老年人在观看情感场景时，更倾向于使用基于注视的情绪调节方式来减轻负面体验。对这种认知要求较低的调节策略的偏好，引发了一个问题：更具认知要求的重新评估任务的费力加工，是否真的能免受与年龄相关的普遍衰退影响。由于音乐不允许将感知注意力从情感源上转移开，因此它为解决这个问题提供了理想的方式。我们研究的目的是考察年轻人和老年人对负面音乐情绪进行积极和超脱重新评估时的情感、行为、生理和认知结果。参与者首先只是简单地聆听一系列具有威胁性的音乐片段，然后被指示要么对音乐引发的情绪进行积极重新评估，要么超脱于这种情绪。研究结果表明，当被指示简单聆听具有威胁性的音乐时，与年轻参与者相比，老年人报告的积极感受更强烈，同时皮肤电导率变化较小。在实施积极和超脱重新评估时，无论年龄组如何，参与者都表现出更积极、更兴奋的情绪体验。我们还发现，与年轻人相比，指示老年人有意重新评估负面情绪会导致他们付出更低的认知成本。综合来看，这些数据表明，与年轻人相比，老年人会自发地对负面情绪进行下调，并成功地执行下调指令。这扩展了先前的研究结果，并提供了令人信服的证据，即即使听觉注意力无法从情感源上转移开，老年人在调节情绪方面仍然更有效。考虑到与年龄相关的执行功能衰退，我们的结果表明，工作记忆任务可能使老年人从引发威胁的音乐回忆中分心，从而导致情绪下调。因此，即使他们被指示实施重新评估策略，老年人可能更倾向于分心而非参与重新评估。这与以下观点一致：尽管年龄增长，但人们更有可能从负面情绪源上分心，以维持自身的幸福感。
