| description.abstract |
Theory and past empirical evidence suggest that the use of dynamic, video-recorded facial expression stimuli (as opposed to static, photographed images) may provide additional cues to individuals engaged in emotion recognition tasks and more effectively tap their real-world experience, enhancing their performance. In the context of aging research, the presentation of dynamic stimuli may be of particular benefit to older adults due to their higher levels of accumulated experience relative to younger adult counterparts, although previous evidence of this effect was limited to facial expressions of positive valence. The present study was designed to investigate whether this pattern of findings might extend to a range of facial expressions of emotion. Posed and spontaneous expressions (happiness, sadness, anger, fear, and disgust) produced by older and young adults were video-recorded and, in a separate phase with new participants, shown to older and young adults whose task was to identify the emotions displayed and whether they were posed or spontaneous. Results demonstrated that participants from both age groups were above chance in both elements of the emotion recognition task. However, young adults generally outperformed older adults, with some exceptions in which no age differences were evident, such as in the recognition of happiness and sadness. Additionally, participants as a whole and within each age group showed null levels of response bias (the tendency to decode expressions as posed or spontaneous). Attention to the nature of stimuli used—particularly with respect to the coding of facial muscle movements—is recommended for future research. |
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