Age and Gender Differences in Emotion Recognition.

Laura Abbruzzese,Ian H Robertson,Nadia Magnani,Mauro Mancuso

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02371

Laura Abbruzzese, Ian H Robertson + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02371

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Journal: Frontiers in psychology	Publication Date: Oct 23, 2019
Citations: 80	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Trinity College Dublin

Abstract

BackgroundExisting literature suggests that age affects recognition of affective facial expressions. Eye-tracking studies highlighted that age-related differences in recognition of emotions could be explained by different face exploration patterns due to attentional impairment. Gender also seems to play a role in recognition of emotions. Unfortunately, little is known about the differences in emotion perception abilities across lifespans for men and women, even if females show more ability from infancy.ObjectiveThe present study aimed to examine the role of age and gender on facial emotion recognition in relation to neuropsychological functions and face exploration strategies. We also aimed to explore the associations between emotion recognition and quality of life.Methods60 healthy people were consecutively enrolled in the study and divided into two groups: Younger Adults and Older Adults. Participants were assessed for: emotion recognition, attention abilities, frontal functioning, memory functioning and quality of life satisfaction. During the execution of the emotion recognition test using the Pictures of Facial Affects (PoFA) and a modified version of PoFA (M-PoFA), subject’s eye movements were recorded with an Eye Tracker.ResultsSignificant differences between younger and older adults were detected for fear recognition when adjusted for cognitive functioning and eye-gaze fixations characteristics. Adjusted means of fear recognition were significantly higher in the younger group than in the older group. With regard to gender’s effects, old females recognized identical pairs of emotions better than old males. Considering the Satisfaction Profile (SAT-P) we detected negative correlations between some dimensions (Physical functioning, Sleep/feeding/free time) and emotion recognition (i.e., sadness, and disgust).ConclusionThe current study provided novel insights into the specific mechanisms that may explain differences in emotion recognition, examining how age and gender differences can be outlined by cognitive functioning and face exploration strategies.

Highlights

Social perception can be described as the ability to understand and react appropriately to the social signals sent out by other people vocally, facially, or through body posture (Mayer et al, 2016)
We aimed to explore the associations between emotion recognition and quality of life
The current study provided novel insights into the specific mechanisms that may explain differences in emotion recognition, examining how age and gender differences can be outlined by cognitive functioning and face exploration strategies

Summary

Introduction

Social perception can be described as the ability to understand and react appropriately to the social signals sent out by other people vocally, facially, or through body posture (Mayer et al, 2016). The value of emotional information can exert significant effects on human performance as it drives behaviors in approaching or avoiding social interactions. As facial expressions convey a wealth of social information, their recognition interacts with various cognitive processes such as attention and memory. Specific emotional information (happy and sad faces) is associated with focused or distributed attention respectively (Srinivasan and Gupta, 2010). Global processing seems to facilitate recognition of happy faces while local processing seems to facilitate recognition of sad faces (Srinivasan and Gupta, 2011). Differences in emotion-attention interaction lead to differential effects on conscious perception of irrelevant emotional stimuli. Existing literature suggests that age affects recognition of affective facial expressions. Eye-tracking studies highlighted that age-related differences in recognition of emotions could be explained by different face exploration patterns due to attentional impairment. Little is known about the differences in emotion perception abilities across lifespans for men and women, even if females show more ability from infancy.

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