Young and Older Emotional Faces: Are there Age-Group Differences in Expression Identification and Memory?

摘要

Studies finding that older compared to young adults are less able to identify facial expressions and have worse memory for negative than positive faces have used only young faces. Studies finding that both age groups are more accurate at recognizing faces of their own than other ages have used mostly neutral faces. Thus, age-differences in processing faces may not extend to older faces, and preferential memory for own-age faces may not extend to emotional faces. To investigate these possibilities, we had young and older participants view young and older faces presented either with happy, angry, or neutral expressions and identify the expressions displayed, and then complete a surprise face recognition task. Older compared to young participants were less able to identify expressions of angry young and older faces and (based on participants’ categorizations) remembered angry faces less well than happy faces. There was no evidence of an own-age bias in memory, but self-reported frequency of contact with young and older adults and awareness of own emotions played a role in expression identification of and/or memory for young and older faces.