Older adults' emotion recognition: No auditory-visual benefit for less clear expressions.

Simonetti, S; Davis, C; Kim, J

Older adults' emotion recognition: No auditory-visual benefit for less clear expressions.

Simonetti, S

Davis, C Kim, J

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Publisher:: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Publication Type:: Journal Article
Citation:: PLoS One, 2022, 17, (12), pp. e0279822
Issue Date:: 2022

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Simonetti, S https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3464-9935
dc.contributor.author	Davis, C
dc.contributor.author	Kim, J
dc.date.accessioned	2023-01-23T03:48:46Z
dc.date.available	2022-12-15
dc.date.available	2023-01-23T03:48:46Z
dc.date.issued	2022
dc.identifier.citation	PLoS One, 2022, 17, (12), pp. e0279822
dc.identifier.issn	1932-6203
dc.identifier.issn	1932-6203
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/165360
dc.description.abstract	The ability to recognise emotion from faces or voices appears to decline with advancing age. However, some studies have shown that emotion recognition of auditory-visual (AV) expressions is largely unaffected by age, i.e., older adults get a larger benefit from AV presentation than younger adults resulting in similar AV recognition levels. An issue with these studies is that they used well-recognised emotional expressions that are unlikely to generalise to real-life settings. To examine if an AV emotion recognition benefit generalizes across well and less well recognised stimuli, we conducted an emotion recognition study using expressions that had clear or unclear emotion information for both modalities, or clear visual, but unclear auditory information. Older (n = 30) and younger (n = 30) participants were tested on stimuli of anger, happiness, sadness, surprise, and disgust (expressed in spoken sentences) in auditory-only (AO), visual-only (VO), or AV format. Participants were required to respond by choosing one of 5 emotion options. Younger adults were more accurate in recognising emotions than older adults except for clear VO expressions. Younger adults showed an AV benefit even when unimodal recognition was poor. No such AV benefit was found for older adults; indeed, AV was worse than VO recognition when AO recognition was poor. Analyses of confusion responses indicated that older adults generated more confusion responses that were common between AO and VO conditions, than younger adults. We propose that older adults' poorer AV performance may be due to a combination of weak auditory emotion recognition and response uncertainty that resulted in a higher cognitive load.
dc.format	Electronic-eCollection
dc.language	eng
dc.publisher	Public Library of Science (PLoS)
dc.relation.ispartof	PLoS One
dc.relation.isbasedon	10.1371/journal.pone.0279822
dc.rights	info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
dc.subject.classification	General Science & Technology
dc.subject.mesh	Humans
dc.subject.mesh	Aged
dc.subject.mesh	Facial Expression
dc.subject.mesh	Emotions
dc.subject.mesh	Anger
dc.subject.mesh	Happiness
dc.subject.mesh	Recognition, Psychology
dc.subject.mesh	Humans
dc.subject.mesh	Facial Expression
dc.subject.mesh	Emotions
dc.subject.mesh	Anger
dc.subject.mesh	Happiness
dc.subject.mesh	Aged
dc.subject.mesh	Recognition, Psychology
dc.title	Older adults' emotion recognition: No auditory-visual benefit for less clear expressions.
dc.type	Journal Article
utslib.citation.volume	17
utslib.location.activity	United States
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Health
utslib.copyright.status	open_access	*
dc.date.updated	2023-01-23T03:48:42Z
pubs.issue	12
pubs.publication-status	Published online
pubs.volume	17
utslib.citation.issue	12

Abstract:

The ability to recognise emotion from faces or voices appears to decline with advancing age. However, some studies have shown that emotion recognition of auditory-visual (AV) expressions is largely unaffected by age, i.e., older adults get a larger benefit from AV presentation than younger adults resulting in similar AV recognition levels. An issue with these studies is that they used well-recognised emotional expressions that are unlikely to generalise to real-life settings. To examine if an AV emotion recognition benefit generalizes across well and less well recognised stimuli, we conducted an emotion recognition study using expressions that had clear or unclear emotion information for both modalities, or clear visual, but unclear auditory information. Older (n = 30) and younger (n = 30) participants were tested on stimuli of anger, happiness, sadness, surprise, and disgust (expressed in spoken sentences) in auditory-only (AO), visual-only (VO), or AV format. Participants were required to respond by choosing one of 5 emotion options. Younger adults were more accurate in recognising emotions than older adults except for clear VO expressions. Younger adults showed an AV benefit even when unimodal recognition was poor. No such AV benefit was found for older adults; indeed, AV was worse than VO recognition when AO recognition was poor. Analyses of confusion responses indicated that older adults generated more confusion responses that were common between AO and VO conditions, than younger adults. We propose that older adults' poorer AV performance may be due to a combination of weak auditory emotion recognition and response uncertainty that resulted in a higher cognitive load.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10453/165360