Age-dependent Reactivity to Affective Images: Evidence for Variation Across Emotion Categories

Background: Research on the effect of age on affective reactivity continues to provide inconsistent findings. The present study addresses two potential explanations that may account for these inconsistencies. First, gender may moderate age differences in affective reactivity and second, age differences in affective reactivity may vary according to emotion category. The aim of the present study was therefore to examine age differences in reactions to emotion-inducing images when singling out the effect of gender and emotion category.Methods: A sample of 396 young (mean age=23.31, SD=3.70; 66% female) and old (mean age=66.09, SD=4.31; 37.5% female) Danish adults rated 105 images from the Nencki Affective Picture System (NAPS) database according to valence and arousal. Images were divided into the three emotion categories of disgust, sadness, and happiness.Results: The findings indicate that age-group influenced affective reactivity, but there was no indication of an an interaction between age-group and gender. Going beyond previous studies, the findings demonstrate that the effect of age-group on affective reactivity varies according to emotion category.Conclusion: The results highlight the importance of considering emotion category in studies of age differences in affective reactivity.