The Time Course of Age-Related Preferences Toward Positive and Negative Stimuli
Open Access
- 1 March 2009
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Oxford University Press (OUP) in The Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences
- Vol. 64B (2), 188-192
- https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gbn036
Abstract
When and why do older adults show positive preferences in their gaze patterns, looking preferentially toward positive and away from some negative stimuli? The current study investigated the time course of older adults’ preferential fixation toward positive (happy) stimuli and away from negative (angry) stimuli to discern whether such patterns are more consistent with cognitive control or with simplified processing accounts of their origins. Positive preferences in older adults were found to emerge only 500 ms and later after stimulus onset and increased linearly over time; this time course is consistent with a cognitive control account.This publication has 22 references indexed in Scilit:
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