Age Differences in the Social Associative Learning of Trust Information

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.

scholarly journals Social Associative Learning and Trust Formation Across Adulthood

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 558-558
Author(s):  
Kendra Seaman ◽  
Alexander Christensen ◽  
Katherine Senn ◽  
Jessica Cooper ◽  
Brittany Cassidy
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Social Interaction ◽  
Computational Modeling ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Social Cues ◽  
Reward Processing ◽  
Trust Game ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Trust Formation ◽  
Over Time

Abstract 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 report a study examining how younger (N=36) and older adults (N=37) learn to trust over time. Participants completed a classic iterative trust game with three partners (15 trials each). Younger and older adults shared similar amounts but there were differences in how they shared that 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 and computational modeling suggests that older adults used different learning strategies. These findings suggest that older adults attend to and learn from social cues differently from younger adults. Neuroimaging results focused on reward processing will also be discussed.

scholarly journals Adult age differences in subjective responses to dynamic socioemotional incentives

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.

scholarly journals ANGER, LOVE, SADNESS: DO EMOTION WORDS HAVE THE SAME SEMANTIC MEANING ACROSS AGE-GROUPS?

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S841-S842
Author(s):  
Madeline J Nichols ◽  
Jennifer A Bellingtier ◽  
Frances Buttelmann
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Semantic Meaning ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Emotion Words ◽  
Emotion Word ◽  
Age Related

Abstract Every day we use emotion words to describe our experiences, but past research finds that the meanings of these words can vary. Furthermore, historical shifts in language use and experiential knowledge of the emotions may contribute to age-differences in what these emotion words convey. We examined age-related differences in the valence, arousal, and expression connoted by the words anger, love, and sadness. We predicted age-related differences in the semantic meanings of the words would emerge such that older adults would more clearly differentiate the positivity/negativity of the words, whereas younger adults would report higher endorsement for the conveyed arousal and expression. Participants included American and German older adults (N=61; mean age=68.98) and younger adults (N=77; mean age=20.77). Using the GRID instrument (Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, 2013), they rated each emotion word for its valence, arousal, and expression when used by a speaker of the participant’s native language. Across emotions and dimensions, older adults were generally more moderate in their understanding of emotion words. For example, German older adults rated anger and sadness as suggesting the speaker felt less bad and more good than the younger adults. American older adults rated love as connoting the speaker felt more bad and less good than younger adults. Arousal ratings were higher for German younger, as opposed to older, adults. Cultural differences were most pronounced for sadness such that German participants gave more moderate answers than American participants. Overall, our research suggests that there are age-related differences in the understanding of emotion words.

On the origins of ageism among older and younger adults

2009 ◽  
Vol 21 (6) ◽  
pp. 1003-1014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ehud Bodner
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Old Age ◽  
Social Identity Theory ◽  
Defensive Strategy ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Age Related ◽  
The Social ◽  
Self Worth ◽  
Suitable Framework ◽  
Middle Aged Adults

ABSTRACTBackground: Ageism is apparent in many social structures and contexts and in diverse forms over the life cycle. This review discusses the development and consequences of ageism toward elderly people by others of any age, according to the Terror Management Theory (TMT) and the Social Identity Theory (SIT).Method: A systematic search of the literature was carried out on the social and psychological origins of ageism in younger and older adults.Results: Studies on the reasons for ageism among older adults point to attitudes that older adults have toward their own age group, while studies on ageism in young adults explain it as an unconscious defensive strategy which younger adults use against death anxiety. In other words, TMT can serve as a suitable framework for ageism in younger adults, and SIT appears to explain ageism in older adults.Conclusions: A dissociation of the linkage between death and old age in younger adults can be achieved by changing the concepts of death and old age. For older adults, it is recommended to improve self-worth by encouraging social contacts in which older adults contribute to younger adults, weaken the effects of age stereotypes in TV programs, and prepare middle-aged adults for living healthy lives as older adults. However, these conclusions should be regarded with caution, because several key areas (age related cues, activated cognitive processes, impact of death awareness on ageism) need to be investigated in order to validate this understanding of the origins of ageism among younger and older adults.

scholarly journals Age as an Element of Diversity: Intergenerational Discussion to Improve Age-Related Attitudes

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 532-532
Author(s):  
Lisa Wagner ◽  
Tana Luger
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Young People ◽  
Older People ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Educational Funding ◽  
Health Funding ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Generational Groups ◽  
Societal Problems ◽  
Over Time

Abstract All generations must work together solving societal problems, yet age-related stereotypes are used to divide generations. Age derogation motivates younger people to vote by creating fear of an older White voting generation (Dear young people, don’t vote; 2018), and to belittle older people (“Okay, Boomer…”). Demonizing older people creates prejudice within families asking that people target loved ones, for example, by pitting educational funding for young against health funding for older adults. Neither group wins when divisiveness occurs. Generation to Generation, an intergenerational course for older and younger adults, promotes intergenerational contact. Students discuss topical issues (e.g., racism) in multi-generational groups. Using pretest-posttest design, all students were invited to complete questionnaires at beginning and end of term. Younger adults reported significant increases in affection, comfort, kinship, engagement and enthusiasm for older adults, whereas older adults showed stability over time. Intergenerational discussion may facilitate improved connections between generations.

scholarly journals Encoding and retrieval eye movements mediate age differences in pattern completion

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jordana Wynn ◽  
Bradley Buchsbaum ◽  
Jennifer Ryan
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
False Alarms ◽  
Memory Errors ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Pattern Completion ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Retrieval Processes ◽  
New Information ◽  
Encoding And Retrieval

Older adults often mistake new information as ‘old’, yet, the mechanisms underlying this response bias remain unclear. Typically, false alarms by older adults are thought to reflect pattern completion – the retrieval of a previously encoded stimulus in response to partial input. However, other work suggests that age-related retrieval errors can be accounted for by deficient encoding processes. In the present study, we used eye movement (EM) monitoring to quantify older adults’ pattern completion bias as a function of EMs during both encoding and partially cued retrieval. Analysis of EMs revealed reduced encoding-related differentiation (i.e., more similar EMs across encoded images) and increased retrieval-related reinstatement (i.e., more similar EMs across encoding and retrieval) by older relative to younger adults, with both encoding and retrieval EMs predicting false alarms. These findings indicate that age-related changes in both encoding and retrieval processes, indexed by EMs, underlie older adults’ increased vulnerability to memory errors.

scholarly journals Pronoun production remains stable over the adult lifespan for contexts with topic continuity

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Madeleine Long ◽  
Hannah Rohde ◽  
Paula Rubio-Fernandez
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Perspective Taking ◽  
Referential Communication ◽  
Main Character ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Discourse Context ◽  
Adult Lifespan ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Referential Choice

A prevalent finding in the referential communication literature is that older adults produce more ambiguous pronouns than younger adults, likely because they have difficulty determining the prominence of referents. This finding has been widely understood to reflect a general age-related deficit in communication. However, all studies from this line of work have used materials involving topic shifts (i.e. when the to-be-named referent shifts from one character to another, which requires perspective-taking and can be cognitively costly). To determine the extent to which younger and older adults’ pronominal use diverges, we investigated whether other aspects of the discourse context influence age-related differences in referential choice, apart from topic shifts. Here we tested a large sample of adults (N=496, ages 18-82) using narrative elicitation tasks across four experiments and nine contexts of topic continuity (i.e. contexts in which the to-be-named referent remained the same). In Experiments 1 and 2, we varied the number of characters in the scene while keeping the sex/gender of the characters distinct and found that pronominal use did not differ by age for scenes with 1, 2, and 3 characters. In Experiments 3 and 4, we varied the number of characters, the sex/gender of those characters (such that they were the same or different), and the linguistic emphasis placed on the main character. Again, we found no age differences across all conditions. Taken together, our findings suggest that older adults’ difficulty with prominence estimates is not all- encompassing, but rather appears to be confined to contexts involving topic shifts.

scholarly journals Virtual Hand Illusion in younger and older adults

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 205566832110593
Author(s):  
Jennifer L. Campos ◽  
Graziella El-Khechen Richandi ◽  
Marge Coahran ◽  
Lindsey E. Fraser ◽  
Babak Taati ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Virtual Environments ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Tactile Feedback ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Localization Accuracy ◽  
Virtual Hand ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Spatio Temporal

Introduction Embodiment involves experiencing ownership over our body and localizing it in space and is informed by multiple senses (visual, proprioceptive and tactile). Evidence suggests that embodiment and multisensory integration may change with older age. The Virtual Hand Illusion (VHI) has been used to investigate multisensory contributions to embodiment, but has never been evaluated in older adults. Spatio-temporal factors unique to virtual environments may differentially affect the embodied perceptions of older and younger adults. Methods Twenty-one younger (18–35 years) and 19 older (65+ years) adults completed the VHI paradigm. Body localization was measured at baseline and again, with subjective ownership ratings, following synchronous and asynchronous visual-tactile interactions. Results Higher ownership ratings were observed in the synchronous relative to the asynchronous condition, but no effects on localization/drift were found. No age differences were observed. Localization accuracy was biased in both age groups when the virtual hand was aligned with the real hand, indicating a visual mislocalization of the virtual hand. Conclusions No age-related differences in the VHI were observed. Mislocalization of the hand in VR occurred for both groups, even when congruent and aligned; however, tactile feedback reduced localization biases. Our results expand the current understanding of age-related changes in multisensory embodiment within virtual environments.

scholarly journals Change in Daily Negative Affect Across 20 Years

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.

scholarly journals Age-Related Differences in Ventral Striatal and Default Mode Network Function During Reciprocated Trust

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominic S. Fareri ◽  
Katherine Hackett ◽  
Lindsey J. Tepfer ◽  
Victoria A. Kelly ◽  
Nicole Henninger ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Default Mode Network ◽  
Trust Game ◽  
Opposite Pattern ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Temporoparietal Junction ◽  
Default Mode ◽  
Network Function ◽  
Social Closeness ◽  
Age Related

Social relationships change across the lifespan as social networks narrow and motivational priorities shift to the present. Interestingly, aging is also associated with changes in executive function, including decision-making abilities, but it remains unclear how age-related changes in both domains interact to impact financial decisions involving other people. To study this problem, we recruited 50 human participants (N_younger = 26, ages 18-34; N_older = 24, ages 63-80) to play an economic trust game as the investor with three partners (friend, stranger, and computer) who played the role of investee. Investors underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during the trust game while investees were seated outside of the scanner. Building on our previous work with younger adults showing both enhanced striatal responses and altered default-mode network (DMN) connectivity as a function of social closeness during reciprocated trust, we predicted that these relations would exhibit age-related differences. We found that striatal responses to reciprocated trust from friends relative to strangers and computers were blunted in older adults relative to younger adults, thus supporting our primary pre-registered hypothesis regarding social closeness. We also found that older adults exhibited enhanced DMN connectivity with the temporoparietal junction (TPJ) during reciprocated trust from friends compared to computers while younger adults exhibited the opposite pattern. Taken together, these results advance our understanding of age-related differences in sensitivity to social closeness in the context of trusting others.

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