The emotional memory trade-off task. (A) During encoding, participants viewed a series of negative (e.g., a vicious snake on wet pebbles), positive (e.g., a cute kitten on a bed), and neutral (e.g., a kettle on a stove), consisting of objects with negative, positive or neutral valences always placed on a neutral background. Participants rated the valence and arousal levels of each scene on a scale of one to seven. (B) During recognition, participants indicated whether each component of the scene was “the same” (e.g., the same snake matched exactly what was seen during encoding), “similar” (e.g., the similar kitten shared the same verbal label as the kitten during encoding). coding but differed in specific visual details), or “new” (e.g., the bolt was new and was not seen during coding). Credit: Frontiers of behavioral neuroscience (2024). DOI: 10.3389/fnbeh.2024.1342589
Previous psychology studies have shown that, on average, older adults tend to see the world in a more positive light than younger adults. In fact, people between the ages of 30 and 50 often display a negativity bias, which essentially means that they are more likely to remember unfavorable events and that the news interprets neutral events in a negative light.
As we age, on the other hand, humans seem to prioritize positive information, despite the cognitive deficits that often appear in old age. For example, studies have shown that healthy older adults tend to prefer looking at happy faces rather than fearful facial expressions and are also more likely to remember positive information.
Researchers from the University of Notre Dame recently set out to study in more depth this evolution towards greater positivity observed at the end of adult life. Their findings, published in Frontiers of behavioral neurosciencesuggest that previously observed shifts toward greater positivity may begin earlier than expected, particularly in midlife.
“While young adults are more likely to listen to, process, and remember negative than positive information, healthy older adults show the opposite pattern,” Xinran Niu, Mia F. Utayde, and colleagues wrote in their article. “The current study evaluates when exactly this positivity shift begins and how it influences memory performance for positive, negative, and neutral information.”
As part of their study, Niu, Utayde and their colleagues conducted a series of experiments involving 274 healthy adults, classified into three distinct age groups: middle-aged (35 to 47 years old), middle-aged middle advanced (48 to 47 years old). 59 years) and the elderly (<59 years). These participants all completed a so-called compromise task on emotional memory.
In this task, participants were presented with 72 different scenes in random order, each displayed on the screen for 5 seconds. Notably, the objects in 24 of these scenes had negative emotional qualities, 24 had positive emotional qualities, and 24 were neutral. All of these objects were placed against what would generally be perceived as a neutral background.
After viewing each of these scenes, participants were asked to rate their emotional valence from 1 to 7, where 1 represented very negative, 4 neutral, and 7 very positive. They were also asked to rate their arousal-related qualities, with 1 being “calming” and 7 being agitated or exciting.
“After 12 hours spanning a night’s sleep or a day’s wakefulness, participants completed an unexpected memory test in which they were shown the objects and backgrounds separately and indicated whether the component of the scene was “the same”, “similar” or “new”. compared to what they saw during the study session”, the researchers explain in their article.
“We found that middle-aged and older adults rated positive and neutral scenes more positively than middle-aged adults. However, only older adults showed better memory for positive objects compared to negative objects, and a greater exchange of positive memory,” they continued.
Overall, the results gathered by this team of researchers suggest that the positivity bias observed in older adults (over 59 years of age) is also often exhibited by older middle-aged people, particularly those aged 48 to 59 years old. Nevertheless, while older adults appeared to remember positive objects more often than negative objects, and often remembered positive objects but forgot neutral backgrounds behind them, this trend was not observed in individuals of middle age.
Essentially, this recent study suggests that a shift toward greater positivity may emerge toward the end of midlife, particularly in terms of stimulus processing. These findings may soon inspire other studies focusing on emotional processing at different stages of life, which could collectively gather new insights into how the passage of time impacts people’s well-being.
“Our results confirm the age-related positivity effect in memory over a relatively long consolidation time (around 12 hours),” the researchers conclude in their article. “Moreover, we provide strong evidence that although a shift toward positive processing emerges in middle age, the positivity bias in memory may not emerge until adulthood. Efforts to better understand these Age-related positivity effects, their mechanisms, their boundary conditions, and the impact on cognitive and emotional processing will be important if we are to better understand and promote the mental well-being and cognitive functioning of aging adults.
More information:
Xinran Niu et al, Age-related positivity effect in emotional memory consolidation from middle age to late adulthood, Frontiers of behavioral neuroscience (2024). DOI: 10.3389/fnbeh.2024.1342589
© 2024 Science X Network
Quote: Study hints at early shift toward more positive attitude among middle-aged people (February 14, 2024) retrieved February 15, 2024 from
This document is subject to copyright. Apart from fair use for private study or research purposes, no part may be reproduced without written permission. The content is provided for information only.
