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Looking on the Bright Side: Aging and the Impact of Emotional Future Simulation on Subsequent Memory.

ABSTRACT: OBJECTIVES:When younger adults simulated positive future events, subsequent memory is positively biased. In the current studies, we explore age-related changes in the impact of emotional future simulation on subsequent memory. METHODS:In Experiment 1, younger and older adults simulated emotional future events before learning the hypothetical outcome of each event via narratives. Memory was assessed for emotional details contained in those narratives. In Experiment 2, a shorter temporal delay between simulation and narrative encoding was used to reduce decay of simulation memory over time. RESULTS:Future simulation did not bias subsequent memory for older adults in Experiment 1. However, older adults performed similar to younger adults in Experiment 2, with more liberal responses to positive information after positive simulation. DISCUSSION:The impact of an optimistic outlook on subsequent memory is reduced with age, which may be at least partly attributable to declining memory for future simulations over time. This work broadens our understanding of the functional consequences of age-related declines in episodic future simulation and adds to previous work showing reduced benefits of simulation with age on tasks tapping adaptive functions.

SUBMITTER: Devitt AL

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7566964 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Looking on the Bright Side: Aging and the Impact of Emotional Future Simulation on Subsequent Memory.

Devitt Aleea L AL Schacter Daniel L DL

The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences 20201001 9

<h4>Objectives</h4>When younger adults simulated positive future events, subsequent memory is positively biased. In the current studies, we explore age-related changes in the impact of emotional future simulation on subsequent memory.<h4>Methods</h4>In Experiment 1, younger and older adults simulated emotional future events before learning the hypothetical outcome of each event via narratives. Memory was assessed for emotional details contained in those narratives. In Experiment 2, a shorter tem ...[more]

PMID: 30950496

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Project description:BackgroundEmotional stimuli used as targets of working memory (WM) tasks can moderate age-related differences in WM performance, showing that aging is associated with reductions in negativity bias. This phenomenon is referred to as the positivity effect. However, there is little research on whether emotional distractors have a similar moderating effect. Moreover, the underlying neural mechanism of this effect has not been studied. In this study, we examined the behavioral and neurophysiological basis for age differences in resistance to emotional distractors within WM.MethodsOlder adults (n = 30, ages 60-74) and young adults (n = 35, ages 19-26) performed a 2-back task in which a digit was superimposed on a face with a happy, angry, or neutral expression as a distractor. Event-related potential (ERP) was simultaneously recorded to assess P2, N2, and later positive potential (LPP) amplitudes.ResultsOlder adults were less accurate and slower than young adults on the WM task. Moreover, the results demonstrated a significant interaction between age and emotional valence on response accuracy, young adults' performance was worse when the distractor was neutral or positive than when it was negative, but there was no effect of the emotional valence of distractors on older adults' WM performance. ERP analyses revealed greater P2 amplitude in older adults than young adults, regardless of the emotional valence of distractors. However, older adults and young adults did not differ on N2 or LPP amplitude, and negative distractors elicited greater N2 than positive distractors in both age groups.ConclusionsThe behavioral findings provided evidence of age-related reductions in negativity bias. Thus, the behavioral measures indicated a positivity effect in WM. However, the ERP results did not show this same interaction. These discrepant results raise questions about whether and to what extent older and young adults differ in controlling the effect of emotional distractors in WM.

Dataset Information

Looking on the Bright Side: Aging and the Impact of Emotional Future Simulation on Subsequent Memory.

Publications

Looking on the Bright Side: Aging and the Impact of Emotional Future Simulation on Subsequent Memory.

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