Positivity effect in aging: evidence for the primacy of positive responses to emotional ambiguity

NEUROBIOLOGY OF AGING

卷:106

Article

Petro, Nathan M.¹  Basyouni, Ruby¹  Neta, Maital¹ 

[1] Univ Nebraska, Ctr Brain Biol & Behav, Dept Psychol, Lincoln, NE 68588 USA

关键词: Emotion;    Aging;    Positivity Effect;    Valence Bias;    Amygdala;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2021.06.015

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

Older compared to younger adults show greater amygdala activity to positive emotions, and are more likely to interpret emotionally ambiguous stimuli (e.g., surprised faces) as positive. While some evidence suggests this positivity effect results from a top-down, effortful mechanism, others suggest it may emerge as the default or initial response. The amygdala is a key node in rapid, bottom-up processing and patterns of amygdala activity over time (e.g., habituation) can shed light on the mechanisms underlying the positivity effect. Younger and older adults passively viewed neutral and surprised faces in an MRI. Only in older adults, amygdala habituation was associated with the tendency to interpret surprised faces as positive or negative (valence bias), where a more positive bias was associated with greater habituation. Interestingly, although a positive bias in younger adults was associated with slower responses, consistent with an initial negativity hypothesis in younger adults, older adults showed faster categorizations of positivity. Together, we propose that there may be a switch to a primacy of positivity in aging. (c) 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

【 授权许可】

Free