title: Age differences in recognition of emotion in lexical stimuli and facial expressions.
abstract: Age differences in emotion recognition from lexical stimuli and facial expressions were examined in a cross-sectional sample of adults aged 18 to 85 (N = 357). Emotion-specific response biases differed by age: Older adults were disproportionately more likely to incorrectly label lexical stimuli as happiness, sadness, and surprise and to incorrectly label facial stimuli as disgust and fear. After these biases were controlled, findings suggested that older adults were less accurate at identifying emotions than were young adults, but the pattern differed across emotions and task types. The lexical task showed stronger age differences than the facial task, and for lexical stimuli, age groups differed in accuracy for all emotional states except fear. For facial stimuli, in contrast, age groups differed only in accuracy for anger, disgust, fear, and happiness. Implications for age-related changes in different types of emotional processing are discussed.
authors: Department of Psychology, Brandeis University, MA, USA. dmi@brandeis.edu
authors: Derek M
authors: DM
authors: Isaacowitz
authors: Corinna E
authors: CE
authors: Löckenhoff
authors: Richard D
authors: RD
authors: Lane
authors: Ron
authors: R
authors: Wright
authors: Lee
authors: L
authors: Sechrest
authors: Robert
authors: R
authors: Riedel
authors: Paul T
authors: PT
authors: Costa
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D005149:Facial Expression; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D014796:Visual Perception; D014825:Vocabulary