Divergent Trajectories in the Aging Mind: Changes in Working Memory for Affective Versus Visual Information with Age

Overview

Journal Psychol Aging

Publisher American Psychological Association

Specialty Geriatrics

Date 2006 Jan 20

PMID 16420130

Citations 87

Authors

Joseph A Mikels

Gregory R Larkin

Patricia A Reuter-Lorenz

Laura L Cartensen

Affiliations

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Abstract

Working memory mediates the short-term maintenance of information. Virtually all empirical research on working memory involves investigations of working memory for verbal and visual information. Whereas aging is typically associated with a deficit in working memory for these types of information, recent findings suggestive of relatively well-preserved long-term memory for emotional information in older adults raise questions about working memory for emotional material. This study examined age differences in working memory for emotional versus visual information. Findings demonstrate that, despite an age-related deficit for the latter, working memory for emotion was unimpaired. Further, older adults exhibited superior performance on positive relative to negative emotion trials, whereas their younger counterparts exhibited the opposite pattern.

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