Similarity in Older and Younger Adults’ Emotional Enhancement of Visually-Evoked N170 to Facial Stimuli

PurposeThe aim of this study was to determine the impact of cognitive load imposed by a speech production task on the speech motor performance of healthy older and younger adults. Response inhibition, selective attention, and working memory were the primary cognitive processes of interest.MethodTwelve healthy older and 12 healthy younger adults produced multiple repetitions of 4 sentences containing an embedded Stroop task in 2 cognitive load conditions: congruent and incongruent. The incongruent condition, which required participants to suppress orthographic information to say the font colors in which color words were written, represented an increase in cognitive load relative to the congruent condition in which word text and font color matched. Kinematic measures of articulatory coordination variability and movement duration as well as a behavioral measure of sentence production accuracy were compared between groups and conditions and across 3 sentence segments (pre-, during-, and post-Stroop).ResultsIncreased cognitive load in the incongruent condition was associated with increased articulatory coordination variability and movement duration, compared to the congruent Stroop condition, for both age groups. Overall, the effect of increased cognitive load was greater for older adults than younger adults and was greatest in the portion of the sentence in which cognitive load was manipulated (during-Stroop), followed by the pre-Stroop segment. Sentence production accuracy was reduced for older adults in the incongruent condition.ConclusionsIncreased cognitive load involving response inhibition, selective attention, and working memory processes within a speech production task disrupted both the stability and timing with which speech was produced by both age groups. Older adults' speech motor performance may have been more affected due to age-related changes in cognitive and motoric functions that result in altered motor cognition.

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Attentional Bias Among Adolescents Who Stutter: Evidence for a Vigilance–Avoidance Effect

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/2020_jslhr-20-00090 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 63 (10) ◽

pp. 3349-3363

Author(s):

Naomi H. Rodgers ◽

Jennifer Y. F. Lau ◽

Patricia M. Zebrowski

Keyword(s):

Social Anxiety ◽

Attentional Bias ◽

Preliminary Evidence ◽

Cutoff Score ◽

Attentional Disengagement ◽

Social Stimuli ◽

Facial Stimuli ◽

The Social ◽

Attentional Engagement ◽

High Social Anxiety

Purpose The purpose of this study was to examine group and individual differences in attentional bias toward and away from socially threatening facial stimuli among adolescents who stutter and age- and sex-matched typically fluent controls. Method Participants included 86 adolescents (43 stuttering, 43 controls) ranging in age from 13 to 19 years. They completed a computerized dot-probe task, which was modified to allow for separate measurement of attentional engagement with and attentional disengagement from facial stimuli (angry, fearful, neutral expressions). Their response time on this task was the dependent variable. Participants also completed the Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents (SAS-A) and provided a speech sample for analysis of stuttering-like behaviors. Results The adolescents who stutter were more likely to engage quickly with threatening faces than to maintain attention on neutral faces, and they were also more likely to disengage quickly from threatening faces than to maintain attention on those faces. The typically fluent controls did not show any attentional preference for the threatening faces over the neutral faces in either the engagement or disengagement conditions. The two groups demonstrated equivalent levels of social anxiety that were both, on average, very close to the clinical cutoff score for high social anxiety, although degree of social anxiety did not influence performance in either condition. Stuttering severity did not influence performance among the adolescents who stutter. Conclusion This study provides preliminary evidence for a vigilance–avoidance pattern of attentional allocation to threatening social stimuli among adolescents who stutter.

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Regulation of Experienced and Anticipated Regret for Daily Decisions in Younger and Older Adults in a Swedish One-Week Diary Study

GeroPsych ◽

10.1024/1662-9647/a000102 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 26 (4) ◽

pp. 233-241 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Pär Bjälkebring ◽

Daniel Västfjäll ◽

Boo Johansson

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Diary Study ◽

Anticipated Regret ◽

Younger Adults ◽

Web Based ◽

Decision Regret ◽

Diary Method ◽

Regulation Strategies

Regret and regret regulation were studied using a weeklong web-based diary method. 108 participants aged 19 to 89 years reported regret for a decision made and a decision to be made. They also reported the extent to which they used strategies to prevent or regulate decision regret. Older adults reported both less experienced and anticipated regret compared to younger adults. The lower level of experienced regret in older adults was mediated by reappraisal of the decision. The lower level of anticipated regret was mediated by delaying the decision, and expecting regret in older adults. It is suggested that the lower level of regret observed in older adults is partly explained by regret prevention and regulation strategies.

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Video Games and Emotion Regulation

GeroPsych ◽

10.1024/1662-9647/a000196 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 31 (4) ◽

pp. 205-213 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Kathryn L. Ossenfort ◽

Derek M. Isaacowitz

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Emotion Regulation ◽

Video Games ◽

Age Differences ◽

Interactive Media ◽

Age Groups ◽

Younger Adults ◽

Media Usage ◽

The Everyday ◽

Media Preferences

Abstract. Research on age differences in media usage has shown that older adults are more likely than younger adults to select positive emotional content. Research on emotional aging has examined whether older adults also seek out positivity in the everyday situations they choose, resulting so far in mixed results. We investigated the emotional choices of different age groups using video games as a more interactive type of affect-laden stimuli. Participants made multiple selections from a group of positive and negative games. Results showed that older adults selected the more positive games, but also reported feeling worse after playing them. Results supplement the literature on positivity in situation selection as well as on older adults’ interactive media preferences.

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The Blank in the Mind Questionnaire (BIMQ)

European Journal of Psychological Assessment ◽

10.1027/1015-5759.25.2.115 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 25 (2) ◽

pp. 115-122 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Despina Moraitou ◽

Anastasia Efklides

Keyword(s):

Negative Affect ◽

Convergent Validity ◽

Factor Model ◽

Self Report ◽

Younger Adults ◽

Confirmatory Factor ◽

Memory Failure ◽

Temporary Memory ◽

The Mind ◽

Lack Of Knowledge

Metacognitive awareness of memory failure may take the form of the “blank in the mind” (BIM) experience. The BIM experience informs the person of a temporary memory failure and takes the form of a disruption in the flow of consciousness, of a moment of no content in awareness. The aim of the present study was to examine the psychometric properties of the Blank in the Mind Questionnaire (BIMQ) designed to tap the BIM experience and differentiate it from other memory-related experiences, such as searching but not having in memory a piece of information (i.e., lack of knowledge). The participants (N = 493) were 249 younger adults (18–30 years old) and 244 older adults (63–89 years old) of both genders. Confirmatory factor analysis applied to the BIMQ confirmed a three-factor model with interrelations between the factors. The first factor represented the experience of lack of knowledge, the second represented the experience of BIM, and the third the person’s negative affective reactions to memory failure. The internal consistency of the three factors ranged from Cronbach’s α = .80 to .88. Convergent validity was shown with correlations of the BIMQ factors with self-report measures of cognitive and memory failures, and to the negative-affect subscale of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS).

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Slow Down You’re Moving Too Fast

Journal of Media Psychology Theories Methods and Applications ◽

10.1027/1864-1105/a000130 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 27 (2) ◽

pp. 53-63 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Annie Lang ◽

Nancy Schwartz ◽

Sharon Mayell

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Cognitive Aging ◽

Attention And Memory ◽

Younger Adults ◽

Media Messages ◽

Two Factors ◽

The Difference

The study reported here compared how younger and older adults processed the same set of media messages which were selected to vary on two factors, arousing content and valence. Results showed that older and younger adults had similar arousal responses but different patterns of attention and memory. Older adults paid more attention to all messages than did younger adults. However, this attention did not translate into greater memory. Older and younger adults had similar levels of memory for slow-paced messages, but younger adults outperformed older adults significantly as pacing increased, and the difference was larger for arousing compared with calm messages. The differences found are in line with predictions made based on the cognitive-aging literature.

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Generation and Associative Encoding in Young and Old Adults

Experimental Psychology (formerly Zeitschrift für Experimentelle Psychologie) ◽

10.1027/1618-3169.55.1.23 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 55 (1) ◽

pp. 23-30 ◽

Cited By ~ 21

Author(s):

Laurence Taconnat ◽

Charlotte Froger ◽

Mathilde Sacher ◽

Michel Isingrini

Keyword(s):

Task Difficulty ◽

Generation Effect ◽

Elderly Adults ◽

Generation Task ◽

Younger Adults ◽

Old Adults ◽

Strength Of Association ◽

Target Words

Abstract. The generation effect (i.e., better recall of the generated items than the read items) was investigated with a between-list design in young and elderly participants. The generation task difficulty was manipulated by varying the strength of association between cues and targets. Overall, strong associates were better recalled than weak associates. However, the results showed different generation effect patterns according to strength of association and age, with a greater generation effect for weak associates in younger adults only. These findings suggest that generating weak associates leads to more elaborated encoding, but that elderly adults cannot use this elaborated encoding as well as younger adults to recall the target words at test.

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