Negative Images, Regardless of Task Relevance, Distract Younger More Than Older Adults

Older adults, compared to younger adults, tend to prioritize positive information more and negative information less. We recently observed this "positivity effect" pattern in an emotion-induced blindness task, which measures attention allocated to task-irrelevant emotional stimuli in the way participants are distracted by them. Older adults were less distracted by negative images compared to younger adults. This could represent an age-related priority shift away from negative emotions. However, it could also be that older adults simply do not see negative images presented at a fast rate. A similar possibility is that older adults to fail to engage with negative stimuli because of their complex nature, rather than due to age-related changes in emotional preference per se. In the present study, we tested this possibility by manipulating the required degree of engagement with emotional distractors. Participants completed a modified emotion-induced blindness task, with emotional distractors that were either task irrelevant (younger: n = 48; older: n = 46) or task relevant (younger: n = 48; older: n = 45). The task relevance of distractors did not affect performance. Even though older adults could quickly perceive the negative images, they were less distracted by them compared to younger adults. Current theories of the positivity effect fail to fully account for these positivity effect patterns in attention, especially those that propose mechanisms requiring a substantial time to enact. The current results may require rethinking previous accounts of the positivity effect and highlight the benefits of probing the positivity effect in early cognitive processing stages. Public Significance Statement The well-being of older adults is increasingly important in an aging society. Our research reveals that the positivity effect-an age-related shift toward positive and away from negative information-is not merely a visual processing limitation in older adults nor due to a slow cognitive process. Instead, the findings suggest the need to revaluate theories to improve understanding of age differences in attention preferences and their implications for future well-being interventions.