ISSN : 1226-9654
This study was designed to investigate the age-related differences in valence and arousal ratings for stimulus materials. In this study, older (n=50) and young adults (n=50) rated 54 emotional faces in terms of valence and arousal using a 7-point scale. Older adults reported happy and neutral faces as being more positive and angry faces as being more negative than young adults did. A similar pattern was evident for arousal. Older adults rated negative and neutral faces as being more arousing than young adults did. This suggests that the older adults have a tendency to respond to emotional faces more extremely. Furthermore, whereas older adults showed a linear association between valence and arousal, young adults showed a U-shaped function. Clinical implications and limitations of the current findings are discussed.
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