Aging and goal-directed emotional attention: Distraction reverses emotional biases
Aging and goal-directed emotional attention: Distraction reverses emotional biases
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DOI：
10.1037/1528-3542.7.4.705
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发表时间：
2007-11-01
期刊：
影响因子：
4.2
通讯作者：
Mather, Mara
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Knight, Marisa;Seymour, Travis L.;Mather, Mara
先前的研究结果表明，在记忆和注意力方面，老年人对积极刺激的偏好胜过消极刺激（相关综述，见马瑟和卡斯滕森，2005年）。本研究利用眼动追踪技术来探究认知控制在老年人选择性视觉注意中的作用。年轻人和老年人观看情绪 - 中性以及情绪 - 情绪的人脸和图片对，同时在全神贯注和注意力分散的条件下记录他们的注视模式。重复先前眼动追踪的研究结果，在全神贯注的条件下，老年人在消极 - 中性刺激配对中对消极刺激分配的视觉注意力比年轻人少。然而，正如基于认知控制对老年人信息处理倾向中的积极效应所做的解释（马瑟和奈特，2005年）所预测的那样，在注意力分散的条件下，老年人回避消极刺激的倾向发生了逆转。与年轻人相比，当注意力分散时，老年人有限的注意力资源更有可能被消极刺激所吸引。这些研究结果表明，当认知控制机制不能完全发挥作用时，情感目标可能会产生意想不到的后果。
Previous findings reveal that older adults favor positive over negative stimuli in both memory and attention (for a review, see Mather & Carstensen, 2005). This study used eye tracking to investigate the role of cognitive control in older adults' selective visual attention. Younger and older adults viewed emotional-neutral and emotional-emotional pairs of faces and pictures while their gaze patterns were recorded under full or divided attention conditions. Replicating previous eye-tracking findings, older adults allocated less of their visual attention to negative stimuli in negative-neutral stimulus pairings in the full attention condition than younger adults did. However, as predicted by a cognitive-control-based account of the positivity effect in older adults' information processing tendencies (Mather & Knight, 2005), older adults' tendency to avoid negative stimuli was reversed in the divided attention condition. Compared with younger adults, older adults' limited attentional resources were more likely to be drawn to negative stimuli when they were distracted. These findings indicate that emotional goals can have unintended consequences when cognitive control mechanisms are not fully available.