Valence F(2, 88) = 7.041, p < .05, n²p = .138. ⢠Younger adults did not differ during pleasant and unpleasant pictures. Older adults showed an enhanced blink.
Ageing and Emotional Reactivity: Do older adults show differential subjective and physiological responding during picture viewing compared to younger adults? Bronwyn M. Massavelli, Ottmar V. Lipp & Nancy A. Pachana School of Psychology, University of QLD 4072, QLD Australia
Picture Viewing: Emotion Induction & Recording
Experiment 2
8
4 6 Average Change Corrugator EMG
Average Change Corrugator EMG
Unpleas_H
2
0
-2
4 2
0 -2
-4 -6
-4
Pleasant
Younger
Older
Unpleasant
Pleasant
Younger
Age Group
Unpleasant Older
Age Group
• Zygomaticus activity showed a valence effect for non probed trials such that activity was enhanced during arousing pleasant relative to neutral and unpleasant pictures and this did not differ across Age F(2, 110) = 4.833, p < .05, η2p = .081 • The Arousal analyses reflected a similar pattern and zygomaticus activity did not differ across the age groups. High
Pleas_H
7.5
Medium
10
Neutral
Low
Unpleas_H
6
58
High Medium Low
59
UnpleasH
56 54 52 50 48 46 Younger
Older Age Group
58
3
1.5
0
52 51 50 Pleasant
Unpleasant
Pleasant
Younger
Unpleasant Older
Age Group
Facial EMG • Corrugator EMG activity was modulated by Valence F(2, 110) = 4.602, p < .05, n²p = .077, with larger activity during arousing unpleasant t(54) = 2.458, p < .05 and neutral t(54) = 1.998, p < .05 than during pleasant pictures, but no difference during arousing unpleasant compared to neutral pictures t(54) = 1.551, ns.
Pl_ H Pl_ M
-1
Pl_ L
-1.5
Unpl_ H Unpl_ M Unpl_ L
-2 -2.5
-6
-3
Pleasant
Younger
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
0.7
-2
Older
Unpleasant
Pleasant
Younger
Unpleasant Older
0.4 Pl_ H
0.1
Pl_ M -0.2
Pl_ L
-0.5
Unpl_ H Unpl_ M
-0.8
Unpl_ L
-1.1
Age Group
Age Group
-1.4 1
SCR
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
Time (s)
• Regarding Arousal, older adults showed lower SCR activity overall F(1, 53) = 6.576, p < .05, n²p = .110, and the basic response pattern did not differ across age. Pleas_H Neutral Unpleas_H
0.25
53
-0.5
2
-1.5
56 54
0
Time (s)
57 55
0.5
1
Startle EMG
Neutral
• Older adults showed less acceleration overall, and more acceleration for arousing unpleasant t(20) = 2.735, p < .05, and pleasant t(20) = 2.180, p < .05 relative to neutral pictures with no difference between arousing unpleasant and pleasant pictures t < 1, ns.
-3.5
• An Age x Valence interaction indicated that although SCR activity was smaller in older adults, both younger and older adults showed larger skin conductance magnitude during arousing pleasant and unpleasant compared to neutral pictures, but not when viewing arousing unpleasant compared to pleasant pictures.
PleasH
• Younger adults (upper panel), exhibited a triphasic waveform pattern, showing a large initial deceleration, whereas older adults (lower panel) showed less deceleration towards the end of the picture presentation regardless of picture valence, F(11, 638) = 2.691, p < .05, n²p = .044. Arousal did not modulate heart rate for either age group F’s < 1. ns.
6
Average Change Zygomaticus EMG
4.5
• Differences in emotion driven physiological responding were evident in both age groups.
60
• Older adults showed less deceleration overall F(1, 58) = 12.353, p < .05, n²p =.176.
-3
• SCR activity was overall smaller in older adults: main effect of Age F(1, 54) = 10.829, p < .05, n²p = .167.
• Blink magnitude was modulated by Valence F(2, 88) = 7.041, p < .05, n²p = .138. • Younger adults did not differ during pleasant and unpleasant pictures. Older adults showed an enhanced blink magnitude during unpleasant pictures (left panel). • Arousal did not appear to modulate startle activity in ways that were different for the age groups (right panel) F’s < 1, ns.
Heart Rate
Heart Rate Change (Bpm)
High Medium Low
10
Neutral
0.2
0.15
0.1
0.05
Conclusions • Across the three experiments, subjectively rated pleasantness did not differ across the age groups. • Older adults provided reduced arousal ratings for pleasant pictures and showed little differentiation among the pleasant high, medium and low arousal categories. • Differences in emotion driven physiological responding were also evident in both age groups. • Compared to younger people, older people differ in subjective evaluations of emotional arousal and these differences manifest in physiological emotional reactivity. • Taken together, this research provides evidence to suggest that the IAPS pictures differentially activate the defensive and appetitive motivational systems for older compared to younger people.
References
0 Younger
Older Age Group
High Medium Low
0.25 Skin Conductance Magnitude
• Experiment 2 investigated whether subjective reactivity to affective pictures drives the physiological responding to these emotionally salient stimuli and aimed to determine whether older adults respond to affective pictures with similar patterns of physiological reactivity as do younger adults. • Younger (n = 39) and older adults (n = 21) viewed affective pictures while their Orbicularis EMG, skin conductance, facial muscle EMG and heart rate reactivity were recorded. • Subjective ratings were collected as a manipulation check to compare the patterns of responding to those in Experiments 1A & B.
• The findings confirm those of Experiment 1A: Overall rated pleasantness did not differ across age F(2, 92) = 1.320, p = .272. • Age-related differences were found for rated arousal, F(2, 92) = 3.017, p = .054, n²p= .062, such that younger adults reported higher arousal ratings for high arousal pictures compared to middleaged but not older adults. • Similar to Experiment 1A, older adults showed less differentiation between arousal levels for high (M = 5.47, SE = .56) and low (M = 4.88, SE = .49) arousal pictures. • The Ratings Manipulation of Experiment 2 replicated the pattern of Experiment 1A.
Pleas_H
6
Average Change Zygomaticus EMG
Experiment 2: Psychophysiological Emotional Reactivity
Experiment 1B
Results
• This pattern of corrugator activity did not differ across age F < 1, ns, and there were no significant effects involving Age for the Arousal analyses, all F’s < 1, ns.
Skin Conductance Magnitude (μS)
• Experiments 1A and 1B determined whether there are age-related differences in the subjective evaluation of affective pictures. Separate groups of participants viewed different sets of pictures from the IAPS and provided ratings of picture valence, arousal, dominance (and fear) using the SelfAssessment Manikin (SAM).
• Pleasantness ratings did not differ across age F(2,106) = 1.33, p = .26. • Age related differences were found for arousal F(4, 212) = 8.54, p
