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The Specificity of Age-Related Decline in Interpretation of Emotion Cues From Prosody

Mitchell, RLC; Kingston, RA; Boucas, SLB

Authors

RLC Mitchell

RA Kingston

SLB Boucas



Abstract

Older adults are not as good as younger adults at decoding prosodic emotions. We sought to determine the specificity of this finding. Performance of older and younger adults was compared on a prosodic emotion task, a “pure” prosodic emotion task, a linguistic prosody task, and a “pure” linguistic prosody task. Older adults were less accurate at interpreting prosodic emotion cues and nonemotional contours, concurrent semantic processing worsened interpretation, and performance was further degraded when identifying negative emotions and questions. Older adults display a pervasive problem interpreting prosodic cues, but further study is required to clarify the stage at which performance declines.

Citation

Mitchell, R., Kingston, R., & Boucas, S. (2011). The Specificity of Age-Related Decline in Interpretation of Emotion Cues From Prosody. Psychology and Aging, 26(2), 406-414. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021861

Journal Article Type Article
Publication Date Jun 1, 2011
Deposit Date Apr 30, 2012
Journal Psychology and Aging
Print ISSN 0882-7974
Electronic ISSN 1939-1498
Publisher American Psychological Association
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 26
Issue 2
Pages 406-414
DOI https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021861