See no evil: Attentional bias toward threat is diminished in aged monkeys.

ABSTRACT: Prior evidence demonstrates that relative to younger adults, older human adults exhibit attentional biases toward positive and/or away from negative socioaffective stimuli (i.e., the age-related positivity effect). Whether or not the effect is phylogenetically conserved is currently unknown and its biopsychosocial origins are debated. To address this gap, we evaluated how visual processing of socioaffective stimuli differs in aged, compared to middle-aged, rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) using eye tracking in two experimental designs that are directly comparable to those historically used for evaluating attentional biases in humans. Results of our study demonstrate that while younger rhesus possesses robust attentional biases toward threatening pictures of conspecifics' faces, aged

SUBMITTER: Santistevan AC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10879459 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature