Positive information facilitates response inhibition in older adults only when emotion is task-relevant.

ABSTRACT: Emotional information is integral to everyday life and impacts a variety of cognitive abilities including response inhibition, a critical skill for maintaining appropriate and flexible behaviour. However, reported effects of emotion on response inhibition are inconsistent in younger adults, and very limited in older adults. Effects of aging are especially relevant because emotion regulation improves with aging despite declining inhibitory control over neutral information. Across three studies, we assessed the impact of emotional facial expressions on response inhibition in younger and older adults while manipulating attention to task stimuli. Emotional faces (versus neutral faces) altered response inhibition only when task instructions required explicit attention to emotional attributes of

SUBMITTER: Williams SE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7677201 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature