Emotion-Cognition Interactions and Aging

描述（由候选人提供）：随着人类年龄的增长，他们的认知和情感生活出现分歧：认知功能的重要方面（即，工作记忆、处理速度）稳步下降，而情绪功能似乎有所改善。纵观对衰老的心理学研究历史，人们更重视对老年人认知缺陷的研究，而不是对情感增强的研究。特别缺乏的是实证研究集中在这些轨迹的相互作用。这个特别的项目将通过研究情绪面部表情的神经处理在老年人大脑中与年轻人大脑中的不同来研究老年人情绪生活变化的神经基础（实验1）。此外，本申请将研究这些神经变化如何在行为水平和神经水平上与注意过程相互作用（实验2和3）。了解与年龄相关的情绪信息神经处理的变化以及这些变化如何与认知处理相互作用，对于心理衰老研究和干预至关重要。这一应用不仅将对心理衰老和认知情感神经科学领域做出重大贡献，而且有可能影响临床老年学在认知情感干预和培训计划方面的研究。

DESCRIPTION (provided by candidate): As humans age, their cognitive and emotional lives diverge: important aspects of cognitive functioning (viz., working memory, processing speed) steadily decline whereas emotional functioning appears to improve. Throughout the history of psychological inquiry into aging, a greater emphasis has been placed on investigating the cognitive deficits of older adults than emotional enhancement. Especially lacking is empirical research focused on the interaction of these trajectories. This particular project will examine the neural substrates of changes in the emotional lives of older adults by examining how the neural processing of emotional facial expressions differs in the aging brain from the young brain (Experiment 1). In addition, this application will investigate how these neural changes interact with attentional processes on a behavioral level as well as a neural level (Experiments 2 & 3). Understanding age-related changes in the neural processing of emotional information and how these changes interact with cognitive processing is critical to psychological aging research as well as interventions. This application will not only make significant contributions to the fields of psychological aging and cognitive-affective neuroscience, but also has the potential to impact research in clinical gerontology with respect to cognitive-affective interventions and training programs.