Age-related decline in the ability to decode emotional prosody: Primary or secondary phenomenon?

Mitchell, R.

doi:10.1080/02699930601133994

Age-related decline in the ability to decode emotional prosody: Primary or secondary phenomenon?

Mitchell, R.

Authors

R. Mitchell

Abstract

Emotion processing deficits can cause catastrophic damage to a person's ability to interact socially. While it is known that older adults have difficulty identifying facial emotions, it is still not clear whether this difficulty extends to identification of the emotion conveyed by prosody. This study investigated whether the ability of older adults to decode emotional prosody falls below that of young adults after controlling for loss of hearing sensitivity and key features of cognitive ageing. Apart from frontal lobe load, only verbal IQ was associated with the age-related reduction in performance displayed by older participants, but a notable deficit existed after controlling for its effects. It is concluded that older adults may indeed have difficulty deducing the emotion conveyed by prosody, and that while this difficulty can be exaggerated by some aspects of cognitive ageing, it is primary in origin.

Citation

Mitchell, R. (2007). Age-related decline in the ability to decode emotional prosody: Primary or secondary phenomenon?. Cognition and Emotion, 21(7), 1435-1454. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699930601133994

Journal Article Type	Article
Publication Date	Oct 8, 2007
Deposit Date	Mar 10, 2015
Publicly Available Date	Mar 10, 2015
Journal	Cognition and Emotion
Print ISSN	0269-9931
Electronic ISSN	1464-0600
Publisher	Taylor and Francis Group
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	21
Issue	7
Pages	1435-1454
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1080/02699930601133994

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Copyright Statement
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis Group in Cognition and Emotion on 08/10/2007, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/02699930601133994.