title: Age-Related Changes in the Processing of Emotional Faces in a Dual-Task Paradigm.
abstract: Background/ Study Context: Age-related changes appear to affect the ability to identify emotional facial expressions in dual-task conditions (i.e., while simultaneously performing a second visual task). The level of interference generated by the secondary task depends on the phase of emotional processing affected by the interference and the nature of the secondary task. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of these variables on age-related changes in the processing of emotional faces.
  
  
  METHODS
  The identification of emotional facial expressions (EFEs) was assessed in a dual-task paradigm using the following variables: (a) the phase during which interference was applied (encoding vs. retrieval phase); and (b) the nature of the interfering stimulus (visuospatial vs. verbal). The sample population consisted of 24 healthy aged adults (mean age = 75.38) and 40 younger adults (mean age = 26.90). The accuracy of EFE identification was calculated for all experimental conditions.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Consistent with our hypothesis, the performance of the older group was poorer than that of the younger group in all experimental conditions. Dual-task performance was poorer when the interference occurred during the encoding phase of emotional face processing and when both tasks were of the same nature (i.e., when the experimental condition was more demanding in terms of attention).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These results provide empirical evidence of age-related deficits in the identification of emotional facial expressions, which may be partially explained by the impairment of cognitive resources specific to this task. These findings may account for the difficulties experienced by the elderly during social interactions that require the concomitant processing of emotional and environmental information.
authors.affiliation: a Facultad de Psicología , Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia , Madrid , Spain.
authors.forename: Carmen
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Casares-Guillén
authors.affiliation: a Facultad de Psicología , Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia , Madrid , Spain.
authors.forename: Beatriz
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: García-Rodríguez
authors.affiliation: b Facultad de Psicología, Departamento Psicología Básica II , Universidad Complutense , Madrid , Spain.
authors.forename: Marisa
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Delgado
authors.affiliation: c Department of Psychology , Julius Maximilians Universität , Würzburg , Germany.
authors.forename: Heiner
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ellgring
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D004644:Emotions; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult