PROCESSING OF FACIAL EXPRESSIONS BY OLDER AND YOUNGER ADULTS

Abstract

<p>Older adults tend to show overall recognition deficits and qualitatively different patterns in the particular expressions that are most difficult to identify (Ruffman et al., 2008). In the current study, 23 younger (18-33 years old) and 23 older (60-80 years old) adults performed a 4AFC (angry, fearful, happy, sad) facial expression categorization task varying orientation (upright/inverted) and stimulus duration (100, 500, 1000 ms). For both groups, happiness was the easiest expression to identify and fear and sadness were the most difficult. Compared to younger adults, older adults were more affected by stimulus orientation, and generally benefit less from increased stimulus duration. For upright faces, there was no age difference in response accuracy but response latency was longer in older subjects. For inverted faces, older adults showed lower accuracy and longer latencies for expressions of anger, fear, and sadness. Recognition of inverted happy faces was spared in older adults for accuracy, but not response latency. These findings could not be explained by impaired detection sensitivity, as no systematic age differences were found for perceived intensity ratings. Finally, the expressions that were most to least difficult to identify was the same in each age group at both orientations. Overall, these results suggest that older individuals process expressive faces in a qualitatively similar way to their younger counterparts, but are less efficient at extracting the diagnostic information.</p>