Mobile Eye Tracking: Tool for Investigating Emotion Regulation Across Adulthood

描述(申请人提供)：在我们过去使用固定眼球跟踪的工作中，我们已经表明，注意力能力良好的老年人可以成功地使用注意力部署来实时调节他们的情绪。最近，我们通过创造一个充满选择的情感环境，将情境选择作为一种独特的情绪调节策略进行了研究，在这个环境中，不同年龄的参与者在情绪刺激中做出选择，就像他们在日常生活中可能做的那样。目前的方案在情感环境中使用移动眼球跟踪，以便将注意力部署的研究与情境选择结合起来。该项目将调查年轻人、中年人和老年人如何动态地实时使用情境选择和注意力分配来调节他们的感受。这项工作是发展性和探索性的；以前没有任何工作使用移动眼球跟踪来研究情绪调节。要做到这一点，需要解决严重的数据处理限制。每个参与者的环境都是特殊的，这是他们选择的一个函数，这使得他们的视觉注视数据很难使用当前可用的软件系统来解释。为了解决这个问题，致力于移动眼球跟踪的心理学家将与从事游戏设计的计算机科学家合作，创建一个定制程序，将凝视与选定的刺激联系起来，从而实现更自动化的数据处理和分析。将对年轻人、中年人和老年人进行两项研究：在这两项研究中，参与者将在情绪诱导后在情感环境中度过一段时间(研究1中的负面情绪，研究2中的积极情绪)，并将被指导要么调节到尽可能好的情绪状态，要么与环境自然互动。选择和凝视将通过移动眼球跟踪和我们新开发的软件进行记录，情绪将被实时记录。分析将测试在选择和凝视方面存在年龄差异的程度，以及这些选择和凝视如何预测实时情绪调节。除了测试情境选择和注意力运用在实时动态情绪调节中的相互作用外，该项目还将提供一种方法和软件，可供其他实验室使用，以研究动态注视和整个生命周期的情绪调节。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): In our past work using stationary eye tracking, we have shown that older adults with good attentional abilities can successfully use attentional deployment to regulate their moods in real- time. More recently, we have investigated situation selection as a distinct emotion regulation strategy by creating a choice-laden Affective Environment in which participants of different ages make choices among emotional stimuli as they might do in their everyday lives. The current proposal uses mobile eye tracking in the Affective Environment in order to combine the study of attentional deployment with situation selection. The project will investigate how younger, middle-aged, and older adults dynamically use both situation selection and attentional deployment in real-time to regulate how they feel. This work is developmental and exploratory; no previous work has used mobile eye tracking to study emotion regulation. Doing so requires tackling a serious data processing limitation. Every participant's environment is idiosyncratic as a function of their choices, rendering their visual fixation data hard to interpret using currently available software systems. To solve this problem, psychologists working on mobile eye tracking will partner with computer scientists working in game design to create a custom program for associating fixations with selected stimuli, permitting more automated processing and analysis of data. Two studies will be conducted with younger, middle-aged, and older adults: in both, participants will spend time in the Affective Environment after a mood induction (negative mood in Study 1, positive mood in Study 2) and will be instructed to either regulate to the best possible mood state, or to interact naturally wit the environment. Choices and fixations will be recorded with mobile eye tracking and our newly-created software, and mood will be recorded in real-time. Analyses will test the extent to which there are age differences in choices and fixations, as well as how these choices and fixations predict real-time mood regulation. In addition to testing the interplay of situation selection and attentional deployment in real-time ambulatory emotion regulation, this project will yield a method and software that can be used by other labs to study dynamic fixation and emotion regulation across the lifespan.