Abstract
Emotional cognition and effective interpretation of affective information is an important factor in social interactions and everyday functioning, and difficulties in these areas may contribute to aetiology and maintenance of mental health conditions. In younger people with depression and anxiety, research suggests significant alterations in behavioural and brain activation aspects of emotion processing, with a tendency to appraise neutral stimuli as negative and attend preferentially to negative stimuli. However, in ageing, research suggests that emotion processing becomes subject to a 'positivity effect', whereby older people attend more to positive than negative stimuli. This review examines data from studies of emotion processing in Late-Life Depression and Late-Life Anxiety to attempt to understand the significance of emotion processing variations in these conditions, and their interaction with changes in emotion processing that occur with ageing. We conducted a systematic review following PRISMA guidelines. Articles that used an emotion-based processing task, examined older persons with depression or an anxiety disorder and included a healthy control group were included. In Late-Life Depression, there is little consistent behavioural evidence of impaired emotion processing, but there is evidence of altered brain circuitry during these processes. In Late-Life Anxiety and Post-Traumatic Stress disorder, there is evidence of interference with processing of negative or threat-related words. How these findings fit with the positivity bias of ageing is not clear. Future research is required in larger groups, further examining the interaction between illness and age and the significance of age at disease onset.
Highlights
Emotional cognition and effective interpretation of affective information is an important factor in social interactions and everyday functioning, and difficulties in these areas may contribute to aetiology and maintenance of mental health conditions
Emotional cognition involves a range of functions, including ‘perceiving, interpreting, managing, and generating responses to socially relevant stimuli, such as intentions and behaviour of others’
Being able to undertake these functions efficiently is an important part of interpersonal relationships and social interactions
Summary
Emotional cognition and effective interpretation of affective information is an important factor in social interactions and everyday functioning, and difficulties in these areas may contribute to aetiology and maintenance of mental health conditions. In younger people with depression and anxiety, research suggests significant alterations in behavioural and brain activation aspects of emotion processing, with a tendency to appraise neutral stimuli as negative and attend preferentially to negative stimuli. In ageing, research suggests that emotion processing becomes subject to a ‘positivity effect’, whereby older people attend more to positive than negative stimuli
Published Version (Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.