Positive Emodiversity Buffers the Association Between Stress and Depressive Symptoms

Abstract Intensive measurements of individuals’ experiences allow for identifying patterns of functioning that may be markers of resilience, and whether such patterns differ across the life span. Using 8 daily diary reports collected in the second burst of the National Study of Daily Experiences (NSDE, n=848, age 34-84; 55%female), we examined whether positive emodiversity (Shannon’s entropy) attenuated the association between cumulative stressor exposure and depressive symptoms, and age-related differences therein. Results indicated age moderated the extent to which positive emodiversity attenuated the association between stress and depressive symptoms (b=0.11, p < .05). The attenuated association was strongest for younger adults with higher positive emodiversity, compared to those with lower positive emodiversity. For older adults, the association between stress and depressive symptoms was relatively similar regardless of their positive emodiversity. Implications pertain to for whom and in what contexts specific types of dynamic emotion experiences may promote optimal functioning and resilience.

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Change in Daily Negative Affect Across 20 Years

Innovation in Aging ◽

10.1093/geroni/igab046.825 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 5 (Supplement_1) ◽

pp. 215-215

Author(s):

Jennifer Piazza ◽

Jonathan Rush ◽

Susan Charles

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Negative Affect ◽

National Study ◽

Emotional Experiences ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Younger Adults ◽

Daily Experiences ◽

Age Related ◽

Over Time ◽

Time Point

Abstract The current study examined levels of daily NA among people (N=413) who participated in three waves of the National Study of Daily Experiences (~1996; ~2008; ~2017). At each wave, participants reported how often they had experienced six negative emotional experiences every day for eight consecutive days. Cross-sectional analyses at each time-point show age-related decreases in NA. Trajectories over time, however, were moderated by age (Est = .006, SE = .002, p = .001), revealing a curvilinear pattern. Among people who were 25-50 years-old at the first wave, daily NA decreased over time, with decreases more pronounced among the younger adults. For people at least 50 years-old at the start of the study, daily NA increased over time, with the slopes steepest for older adults. Findings indicate that cross-sectional and longitudinal age-related patterns in NA differ when examining data collected from 1996 to 2017.

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Age-Related Differences in Motivational Integration and Cognitive Control

10.31234/osf.io/a96nw ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Debbie Marianne Yee ◽

Sarah L Adams ◽

Asad Beck ◽

Todd Samuel Braver

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Decision Making ◽

Cognitive Control ◽

Task Performance ◽

Cognitive Task ◽

Monetary Reward ◽

Potential Candidate ◽

Younger Adults ◽

Age Related ◽

Cognitive Task Performance

Motivational incentives play an influential role in value-based decision-making and cognitive control. A compelling hypothesis in the literature suggests that the brain integrates the motivational value of diverse incentives (e.g., motivational integration) into a common currency value signal that influences decision-making and behavior. To investigate whether motivational integration processes change during healthy aging, we tested older (N=44) and younger (N=54) adults in an innovative incentive integration task paradigm that establishes dissociable and additive effects of liquid (e.g., juice, neutral, saltwater) and monetary incentives on cognitive task performance. The results reveal that motivational incentives improve cognitive task performance in both older and younger adults, providing novel evidence demonstrating that age-related cognitive control deficits can be ameliorated with sufficient incentive motivation. Additional analyses revealed clear age-related differences in motivational integration. Younger adult task performance was modulated by both monetary and liquid incentives, whereas monetary reward effects were more gradual in older adults and more strongly impacted by trial-by-trial performance feedback. A surprising discovery was that older adults shifted attention from liquid valence toward monetary reward throughout task performance, but younger adults shifted attention from monetary reward toward integrating both monetary reward and liquid valence by the end of the task, suggesting differential strategic utilization of incentives. Together these data suggest that older adults may have impairments in incentive integration, and employ different motivational strategies to improve cognitive task performance. The findings suggest potential candidate neural mechanisms that may serve as the locus of age-related change, providing targets for future cognitive neuroscience investigations.

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Internet Navigation Skills for Financial Management: Associations with Age, Neurocognitive Performance, and Functional Capacity

10.31234/osf.io/q46r8 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Samina Rahman ◽

Victoria Kordovski ◽

Savanna Tierney ◽

Steven Paul Woods

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Functional Capacity ◽

Financial Management ◽

Internet Banking ◽

Online Banking ◽

Neurocognitive Performance ◽

Younger Adults ◽

Neurocognitive Functions ◽

Age Related ◽

Use Factors

Objective: Online banking is becoming increasingly common among older adults, whomay experience difficulties effectively navigating this instrumental technology. Thisstudy examined age effects on a performance-based Internet banking task and itsassociation with neurocognitive ability and functional capacity in older and youngeradults. Method: Thirty-five older adults and 50 younger adults completed anexperimenter-controlled online banking measure in which they independentlyperformed a series of naturalistic financial tasks (e.g., account transfers, bill paying).Participants also completed a standardized battery of neuropsychological tests andmeasures of functional capacity. Results: Older adults were markedly slower and lessaccurate in completing the Internet-based banking task, which was not confounded byother demographic, mood, or computer use factors. Higher scores on measures ofneurocognition and financial functional capacity were both strongly associated withhigher Internet-based banking task accuracy scores and quicker completion times inthe older, but not the younger adults. Conclusions: Findings suggest that older adultsexperience difficultly quickly and accurately navigating online banking platforms, whichmay be partly related to age-related declines in neurocognitive functions and basicfinancial capacity. Future studies might examine whether neurocognitive approaches toremediation and compensation can be used to improve online banking capacity inolder adults.

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The effect of age on postural and cognitive task performance while using vibrotactile feedback

Journal of Neurophysiology ◽

10.1152/jn.00083.2014 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 113 (7) ◽

pp. 2127-2136 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Chia-Cheng Lin ◽

Susan L. Whitney ◽

Patrick J. Loughlin ◽

Joseph M. Furman ◽

Mark S. Redfern ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Cognitive Performance ◽

Center Of Pressure ◽

Cognitive Task ◽

Balance Performance ◽

Vibrotactile Feedback ◽

Younger Adults ◽

Age Related ◽

Trunk Tilt ◽

Effect Of Age

Vibrotactile feedback (VTF) has been shown to improve balance performance in healthy people and people with vestibular disorders in a single-task experimental condition. It is unclear how age-related changes in balance affect the ability to use VTF and if there are different attentional requirements for old and young adults when using VTF. Twenty younger and 20 older subjects participated in this two-visit study to examine the effect of age, VTF, sensory condition, cognitive task, duration of time, and visit on postural and cognitive performance. Postural performance outcome measures included root mean square of center of pressure (COP) and trunk tilt, and cognitive performance was assessed using the reaction time (RT) from an auditory choice RT task. The results showed that compared with younger adults, older adults had an increase in COP in fixed platform conditions when using VTF, although they were able to reduce COP during sway-referenced platform conditions. Older adults also did not benefit fully from using VTF in their first session. The RTs for the secondary cognitive tasks increased significantly while using the VTF in both younger and older adults. Older adults had a larger increase compared with younger adults, suggesting that greater attentional demands were required in older adults when using VTF information. Future training protocols for VTF should take into consideration the effect of aging.

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Age Differences in the Social Associative Learning of Trust Information

10.31234/osf.io/b38rd ◽

2022 ◽

Author(s):

Kendra Leigh Seaman ◽

Alexander P. Christensen ◽

Katherine Senn ◽

Jessica Cooper ◽

Brittany Shane Cassidy

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Age Differences ◽

Social Cues ◽

Trust Game ◽

Time Model ◽

Younger Adults ◽

Cortical Areas ◽

Age Related ◽

The Social ◽

Over Time

Trust is a key component of social interaction. Older adults, however, often exhibit excessive trust relative to younger adults. One explanation is that older adults may learn to trust differently than younger adults. Here, we examine how younger (N=33) and older adults (N=30) learn to trust over time. Participants completed a classic iterative trust game with three partners. Younger and older adults shared similar amounts but differed in how they shared money. Compared to younger adults, older adults invested more with untrustworthy partners and less with trustworthy partners. As a group, older adults displayed less learning than younger adults. However, computational modeling shows that this is because older adults are more likely to forget what they have learned over time. Model-based fMRI analyses revealed several age-related differences in neural processing. Younger adults showed prediction error signals in social processing areas while older adults showed over-recruitment of several cortical areas. Collectively, these findings suggest that older adults attend to and learn from social cues differently from younger adults.

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Adult age differences in subjective responses to dynamic socioemotional incentives

10.31234/osf.io/4u3kc ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Sade J Abiodun ◽

Galen McAllister ◽

Gregory Russell Samanez-Larkin ◽

Kendra Leigh Seaman

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Age Differences ◽

Emotional Valence ◽

Incentive Motivation ◽

Social Signals ◽

Younger Adults ◽

Positivity Effect ◽

Adult Age ◽

Age Related ◽

Adult Age Differences

Facial expressions are powerful communicative social signals that motivate feelings and action in the observer. However, research on incentive motivation has overwhelmingly focused on money and points and the limited research on social incentives has been mostly focused on responses in young adulthood. Previous research on the age-related positivity effect and adult age differences in social motivation suggest that older adults might experience higher levels of positive arousal to socioemotional stimuli than younger adults. Affect ratings following dynamic emotional expressions (anger, happiness, sadness) varying in magnitude of expression showed that higher magnitude expressions elicited higher arousal and valence ratings. Older adults did not differ significantly in levels of arousal when compared to younger adults, however their ratings of emotional valence were significantly higher as the magnitude of expressions increased. The findings provide novel evidence that socioemotional incentives may be relatively more reinforcing as adults age. More generally, these dynamic socioemotional stimuli that vary in magnitude are ideal for future studies of more naturalistic affect elicitation, studies of social incentive processing, and use in incentive-driven choice tasks.

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Structural differences in the semantic networks of younger and older adults

10.31234/osf.io/s73dp ◽

2018 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Dirk U. Wulff ◽

Thomas Hills ◽

Rui Mata

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Cognitive Modeling ◽

Semantic Network ◽

Semantic Networks ◽

Edge Weight ◽

Younger Adults ◽

Age Related ◽

Weight Distributions ◽

Path Lengths ◽

First Time

Cognitive science invokes semantic networks to explain diverse phenomena from reasoning to memory retrieval and creativity. While diverse approaches are available, researchers commonly assume a single underlying semantic network that is shared across individuals. Yet, semantic networks are considered the product of experience implying that individuals who make different experiences should possess different semantic networks. By studying differences between younger and older adults, we demonstrate that this is the case. Using a network analytic approach and diverse empirical data, we present converging evidence of age-related differences in semantic networks of groups and, for the first time, individuals. Specifically, semantic networks of older adults exhibited larger degrees, less clustering, and longer path lengths. Furthermore, the edge weight distributions of older adults individual networks exhibited significantly more skew and higher entropy across node pairs and, except for unrelated node pairs, less inter-individual agreement, suggesting that older adults networks are generally more distinct than younger adults networks. Our results challenge the common conception of a single semantic network shared by individuals and highlight the importance of individual differences in cognitive modeling. They also present valuable benchmarks to discern between theories of age-related changes in cognitive performance.

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Goal disengagement capacities and severity of disease across older adulthood

International Journal of Behavioral Development ◽

10.1177/0165025415597549 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 40 (2) ◽

pp. 137-144 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Joelle Jobin ◽

Carsten Wrosch

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Depressive Symptoms ◽

Emotional Distress ◽

Well Being ◽

Older Adulthood ◽

Mediation Analyses ◽

Age Related ◽

Goal Disengagement ◽

Age Range ◽

Early Old Age

This study examined age-related associations between goal disengagement capacities, emotional distress, and disease severity across older adulthood. Given that an age-related increase in the experience of stressors might render important goals unattainable, it is expected that goal disengagement capacities would predict a decrease in the severity of experienced illness (i.e., the common cold) by preventing emotional distress (i.e., depressive symptoms), particularly so among individuals in advanced (as compared to early) old age. This hypothesis was tested in a 6-year longitudinal study of 131 older adults (age range = 64 to 90). Regression analyses showed that goal disengagement capacities buffered 6-year increases in older adults’ cold symptoms, and that this effect was significantly pronounced among older-old participants. Mediation analyses further indicated that changes in depressive symptoms exerted an indirect effect on the age-related association between goal disengagement and changes in cold symptoms. The study’s findings suggest that goal disengagement capacities become increasingly important for protecting emotional well-being and physical health as older adults advance in age.

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How Families Make Their Way Into Your Heart: Exploring the Associations Between Daily Experiences Involving Family Members and Cardiovascular Health

Annals of Behavioral Medicine ◽

10.1093/abm/kaab095 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Hye Won Chai ◽

David M Almeida

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Health Outcomes ◽

Cardiovascular Health ◽

Family Members ◽

The United States ◽

Cardiovascular Outcomes ◽

National Study ◽

Public Health Issue ◽

Negative Experiences ◽

Daily Experiences

Abstract Background Cardiovascular disease is a critical public health issue and a growing body of literature on relationships and health point to individuals’ interactions and involvement with family members as significant correlates of cardiovascular outcomes. However, less is known about the implications of daily encounters with family members on cardiovascular health outcomes and how the associations vary across adulthood. Purpose The aims of this study were to examine the associations of positive and negative daily experiences with family members with comprehensive measures of cardiovascular health and to further explore how age moderates these associations. Methods This study used data from the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) II and MIDUS Refresher. The sample was composed of respondents who participated in two subprojects of MIDUS, namely the National Study of Daily Experiences (NSDE) and Biomarker Project (N = 1,312). Indices of cardiovascular health included inflammatory markers, autonomic functioning, and Life’s Simple 7 scores. Results Results showed that the associations between daily family experiences and cardiovascular outcomes differed by age. Having more daily negative experiences with family members was associated with better cardiovascular health outcomes among young adults and worse cardiovascular outcomes among older adults. Having more daily positive experiences was also associated with lower heart rate variability for older adults. Conclusions Results revealed that contrary to the general assumption that negative experiences have health-damaging effects, frequent involvement with family members in daily life, even negative ones, may be indicative of active engagement in life that could be health promoting for younger adults.

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Advanced Aging Enhances the Positivity Effect in Memory: Due to Cognitive Control or Age-Related Decline in Emotional Processing?

Collabra Psychology ◽

10.1525/collabra.222 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 5 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Michiko Sakaki ◽

Jasmine A. L. Raw ◽

Jamie Findlay ◽

Mariel Thottam

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Cognitive Control ◽

Emotional Processing ◽

Aging Brain ◽

Control Mechanisms ◽

Younger Adults ◽

Positivity Effect ◽

Old Adults ◽

Age Related ◽

Conditioned Responses

Older adults typically remember more positive than negative information compared to their younger counterparts; a phenomenon referred to as the ‘positivity effect.’ According to the socioemotional selectivity theory (SST), the positivity effect derives from the age-related motivational shift towards attaining emotionally meaningful goals which become more important as the perception of future time becomes more limited. Cognitive control mechanisms are critical in achieving such goals and therefore SST predicts that the positivity effect is associated with preserved cognitive control mechanisms in older adults. In contrast, the aging-brain model suggests that the positivity effect is driven by an age-related decline in the amygdala which is responsible for emotional processing and emotional learning. The aim of the current research was to address whether the age-related positivity effect is associated with cognitive control or impaired emotional processing associated with aging. We included older old adults, younger old adults and younger adults and tested their memory for emotional stimuli, cognitive control and amygdala-dependent fear conditioned responses. Consistent with prior research, older adults, relative to younger adults, demonstrate better memory for positive over negative images. We further found that within a group of older adults, the positivity effect increases as a function of age, such that older old adults demonstrated a greater positivity effect compared to younger older adults. Furthermore, the positivity effect in older old adults was associated with preserved cognitive control, supporting the prediction of SST. Contrary to the prediction of the aging-brain model, participants across all groups demonstrated similar enhanced skin conductance responses to fear conditioned stimuli – responses known to rely on the amygdala. Our results support SST and suggest that the positivity effect in older adults is achieved by the preserved cognitive control mechanisms and is not a reflection of the impaired emotional function associated with age.

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