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Conflict monitoring and adaptation to affective stimuli as a function of ageing

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Abstract

The current study investigated whether preference for positive affect would be observed in the context of a higher order control process with increasing age given the premise of affective prioritization with ageing. The study examined how affect interacted with cognitive control mechanisms across young, middle-aged and older adults. Conflict monitoring and adaptation for affective stimuli was examined with a face-word Stroop task using happy and fearful facial expressions. The participants’ task was to detect the emotional expression (Happy or Fear) of the face shown with a distractor word (Happy or Fear) written across the face. Reaction time and accuracy data was analysed to compare adaptation effect and Stroop interference as a function of age, valence and previous trial congruence. The results demonstrated a stronger adaptation effect for negative affect in young adults and for positive affect in middle-aged adults and older adults. These results can be explained in terms of the socio-emotional selectivity theory of affective bias in the elderly and the involvement of attentional control mechanisms. This study empirically demonstrates shifts in affective bias towards positive affect with ageing through the implicit recruitment of cognitive control.

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Availability of data and material

Data is available on Kar, B. R. (2019, November 8). Data_Affective conflict adaptation_aging. Retrieved from osf.io/z6ujh.

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  1. Centre of Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences, University of Allahabad, Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, 211002, India

    Richa Nigam & Bhoomika Rastogi Kar

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  1. Richa Nigam
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Contributions

RN contributed in data collection, analysis and towards the write-up of the manuscript. BRK contributed towards conceptual framework, study design, statistical analysis and write-up of the manuscript. Both the authors approved the final manuscript before submission.

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Correspondence to Bhoomika Rastogi Kar.

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The research involved human participants. The study was approved by the Institutional Ethics Review Board (IERB) of the University of Allahabad.

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Nigam, R., Kar, B.R. Conflict monitoring and adaptation to affective stimuli as a function of ageing. Cogn Process 22, 675–690 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-021-01042-5

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