Emotional expressions reduce the own-age bias (original) (raw)
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Interpreting the emotions of others through their facial expressions can provide important social information, yet the way in which we judge an emotion is subject to psychosocial factors. We hypothesized that the age of a face would bias how the emotional expressions are judged, with older faces generally more likely to be viewed as having more positive and less negative expressions than younger faces. Using two-alternative forced-choice perceptual decision tasks, participants sorted young and old faces of which emotional expressions were gradually morphed into one of two categories— " neutral vs. happy " and " neutral vs. angry. " The results indicated that old faces were more frequently perceived as having a happy expression at the lower emotional intensity levels, and less frequently perceived as having an angry expression at the higher emotional intensity levels than younger faces in young adults. Critically, the perceptual decision threshold at which old faces were judged as happy was lower than for young faces, and higher for angry old faces compared to young faces. These findings suggest that the age of the face influences how its emotional expression is interpreted in social interactions.
Emotion, 2009
Studies finding that older compared to young adults are less able to identify facial expressions and have worse memory for negative than positive faces have used only young faces. Studies finding that both age groups are more accurate at recognizing faces of their own than other ages have used mostly neutral faces. Thus, age-differences in processing faces may not extend to older faces, and preferential memory for own-age faces may not extend to emotional faces. To investigate these possibilities, we had young and older participants view young and older faces presented either with happy, angry, or neutral expressions and identify the expressions displayed, and then complete a surprise face recognition task. Older compared to young participants were less able to identify expressions of angry young and older faces and (based on participants' categorizations) remembered angry faces less well than happy faces. There was no evidence of an own-age bias in memory, but self-reported frequency of contact with young and older adults and awareness of own emotions played a role in expression identification of and/or memory for young and older faces.
Social contacts and loneliness affect the own age bias for emotional faces
Scientific Reports, 2022
Individuals are better at recognizing faces of their own age group (Own Age Bias) but it is unclear whether this bias occurs also for emotional faces and to what extent is affected by loneliness. Young individuals (N = 235) completed an age categorization task on faces of young and old individuals showing neutral, happy, and angry expressions. After a filler task, they categorized as seen or novel the original set of faces intermixed with a new set. Findings showed an Own Age Bias for novel young faces but no evidence that emotion eliminates it. Recognition accuracy was better for emotional faces, but the two factors did not interact. Importantly, low loneliness was linked to an Own Age Bias for novel happy faces. These findings are discussed in the context of current theoretical accounts of the Own Age Bias and of the effects of loneliness on attention and memory.
Face processing is a crucial element of human social interaction. Social category information on faces, including race, sex and age cues, can influence the perception of emotional expressions. Little is known about the effects of age cues on emotion processing, nor the potential mechanisms underlying this influence. Works which address this interaction, proposed mechanisms and associated theoretical models will be included in this literature review. The evidence examined suggests that the most compelling explanation for this interaction is congruence between the emotional valence of specific social categories and the displayed emotional expression. However, existing research has used only young vs older adult face stimuli or targeted manipulations of young adult faces. The proposed study aims to extend the small body of existing age research by comparing responses to child vs young adult face stimuli, using experimental design to competitively test three major proposed underlying mechanisms. The results of this research may contribute to a greater understanding of how humans process social category cues and emotional expressions
An own-age bias in age estimation of faces in children and adults
Perception, 2010
The occurrence of an own-age bias on age estimation of faces was assessed by comparing children (10-14), young (20-30) and older (65-75) adults' performances. Participants from each age group estimated both in-group and out-group faces. Overall, the age of children's faces was more accurately estimated than the age of both young and older adult faces. Moreover, the age of young adult faces was more accurately estimated than that of older adults. A significant "Age of participants" X "Age of face stimuli" interaction was revealed. Although we did not observe a crossed interaction where each age group would have been more accurate for in-group estimation than for out-group estimation, present results reveal the occurrence of an own-age bias in age estimation. There was no significant difference between the three groups when estimating child faces, but young and older adults were more accurate for in-group estimation than the other groups of participants.
Older Adults’ Trait Impressions of Faces Are Sensitive to Subtle Resemblance to Emotions
Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 2013
Younger adults (YA) attribute emotion-related traits to people whose neutral facial structure resembles an emotion (emotion overgeneralization). The fact that older adults (OA) show deficits in accurately labeling basic emotions suggests that they may be relatively insensitive to variations in the emotion resemblance of neutral expression faces that underlie emotion overgeneralization effects. On the other hand, the fact that OA, like YA, show a 'pop-out' effect for anger, more quickly locating an angry than a happy face in a neutral array, suggests that both age groups may be equally sensitive to emotion resemblance. We used computer modeling to assess the degree to which neutral faces objectively resembled emotions and assessed whether that resemblance predicted trait impressions. We found that both OA and YA showed anger and surprise overgeneralization in ratings of danger and naiveté, respectively, with no significant differences in the strength of the effects for the two age groups. These findings suggest that well-documented OA deficits on emotion recognition tasks may be more due to processing demands than to an insensitivity to the social affordances of emotion expressions.
An own-age bias in age estimation of faces
Revue Européenne de Psychologie Appliquée, 2012
The occurrence of an own-age bias on age estimation of faces was assessed by comparing children (10-14), young (20-30) and older (65-75) adults' performances. Participants from each age group estimated both in-group and out-group faces. Overall, the age of children's faces was more accurately estimated than the age of both young and older adult faces. Moreover, the age of young adult faces was more accurately estimated than that of older adults. A significant "Age of participants" X "Age of face stimuli" interaction was revealed. Although we did not observe a crossed interaction where each age group would have been more accurate for in-group estimation than for out-group estimation, present results reveal the occurrence of an own-age bias in age estimation. There was no significant difference between the three groups when estimating child faces, but young and older adults were more accurate for in-group estimation than the other groups of participants.
The own-age bias in face recognition: A meta-analytic and theoretical review
2011
A large number of studies have examined the finding that recognition memory for faces of one's own age group is often superior to memory for faces of another age group. We examined this own-age bias (OAB) in the meta-analyses reported. These data showed that hits were reliably greater for same-age relative to other-age faces (g ϭ 0.23) and that false alarms were reliably less likely for same-age compared with other-age faces (g ϭ Ϫ0.23). Further meta-analyses of measures of signal detection demonstrated that, although no difference in response criterion was evident (g ϭ Ϫ0.01), discriminability was reliably better for same-age compared with other-age faces (g ϭ 0.37). As well, children, younger adults, and older adults exhibited superior discriminability for same-age compared with other-age age faces. Thus, the OAB appears to be a robust effect that influences the accuracy of face recognition. Theoretical accounts of the OAB have generally suggested that it reflects more extensive, recent experiences with one's own age group relative to other-age groups. Additional analyses were supportive of this account as the OAB was present even for groups (e.g., older adults) that had prior experiences as members of another age group. However, the most comprehensive account of the OAB will also likely invoke mechanisms suggested by social-cognitive theories.
Processing own-age vs. other-age faces: Neuro-behavioral correlates and effects of emotion
NeuroImage, 2013
Age constitutes a salient feature of a face and signals group membership. There is evidence of greater attention to and better memory for own-age than other-age faces. However, little is known about the neural and behavioral mechanisms underlying processing differences for own-age vs. other-age faces. Even less is known about the impact of emotion expressed in faces on such own-age effects. Using fMRI, the present study examined brain activity while young and older adult participants identified expressions of neutral, happy, and angry young and older faces. Across facial expressions, medial prefrontal cortex, insula, and (for older participants) amygdala showed greater activity to own-age than other-age faces. These own-age effects in ventral medial prefrontal cortex and insula held for neutral and happy faces, but not for angry faces. This novel and intriguing finding suggests that processing of negative facial emotions under some conditions overrides age-of-face effects.
2016
Facial attributes such as race, sex, and age can interact with emotional expressions; however, only a couple of studies have investigated the nature of the interaction between facial age cues and emotional expressions and these have produced inconsistent results. Additionally, these studies have not addressed the mechanism/ s driving the influence of facial age cues on emotional expression or vice versa. In the current study, participants categorised young and older adult faces expressing happiness and anger (Experiment 1) or sadness (Experiment 2) by their age and their emotional expression. Age cues moderated categorisation of happiness vs. anger and sadness in the absence of an influence of emotional expression on age categorisation times. This asymmetrical interaction suggests that facial age cues are obligatorily processed prior to emotional expressions. Finding a categorisation advantage for happiness expressed on young faces relative to both anger and sadness which are negative in valence but different in their congruence with old age stereotypes or structural overlap with age cues suggests that the observed influence of facial age cues on emotion perception is due to the congruence between relatively positive evaluations of young faces and happy expressions.