Detection of Verbal Threat in Older Adults

An anger superiority effect in the rapid detection of emotional faces has been supported by a variety of researchers using both photographic and schematic faces. The current research attempts to test this effect in a sample of older adults and extend this effect from faces to words. Fifty-four older adults and 42 younger adults were compared on their reaction times to same/different decisions for emotion word stimuli (i.e., happy, sad, angry, neutral) presented in horizontal 3-word triplets. Younger adults detected all word types more quickly than the older adults, and both younger and older adults detected angry words faster than both happy and sad words. An interaction between age and stimuli was observed for percent correct (with the greatest age differences found for sad items) but not for reaction time. These results indicate that both older and younger adults detect angry words faster than happy and sad words. This is consistent with previous research indicating that initial detection of emotional visual stimuli may not be affected by age.