Interactions between Identity and Emotional Expression in Face Processing across the Lifespan: Evidence from Redundancy Gains

Yankouskaya, Alla and Rotshtein, Pia and Humphreys, Glyn (2014) Interactions between Identity and Emotional Expression in Face Processing across the Lifespan: Evidence from Redundancy Gains. Journal of Aging Research, 2014. ISSN 2090-2204

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Abstract

We tested how aging affects the integration of visual information from faces. Three groups of participants aged 20–30, 40–50,
and 60–70 performed a divided attention task in which they had to detect the presence of a target facial identity or a target facial
expression.Three target stimuli were used: (1) with the target identity but not the target expression, (2) with the target expression
but not the target identity, and (3) with both the target identity and target expression (the redundant target condition).On nontarget
trials the faces contained neither the target identity nor expression. All groups were faster in responding to a face containing both
the target identity and emotion compared to faces containing either single target. Furthermore the redundancy gains for combined
targets exceeded performance limits predicted by the independent processing of facial identity and emotion. These results are held
across the age range.The results suggest that there is interactive processing of facial identity and emotion which is independent of
the effects of cognitive aging. Older participants demonstrated reliably larger size of the redundancy gains compared to the young
group that reflect a greater experience with faces. Alternative explanations are discussed.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information and Comments: Published version available at https://www.hindawi.com/journals/jar/2014/136073/
Keywords: Interaction, face processing, Identity, emotion, ageing
Faculty / Department: Faculty of Human and Digital Sciences > School of Psychology
Depositing User: Alla Yankouskaya
Date Deposited: 24 Oct 2017 11:25
Last Modified: 24 Oct 2017 11:26
URI: https://hira.hope.ac.uk/id/eprint/2207

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