Age-related differences in recall for words using semantics and prosody

ABSTRACT

The positivity effect is a developmental shift seen in older adults to be increasingly influenced by positive information in areas such as memory, attention, and decision-making. This study is the first to examine the age-related differences of the positivity effect for emotional prosody. Participants heard a factorial combination of words that were semantically positive or negative said with either positive or negative intonation. Results showed a semantic positivity effect for older adults, and a prosody positivity effect for younger adults. Additionally, older adults showed a significant decrease in recall for semantically negative words said in an incongruent prosodically positive tone.

Keywords:

• Aging
• communication
• positivity effect
• prosody
• semantics

Author notes

Jonathan D. Sober is currently a Ph.D. student at Wayne State University in the Clinical Psychology program with an interest in Neuropsychology. He received a Master's degree in Applied Experimental Psychology from the University of West Florida in 2012. His research interests include Aging, Alzheimer's Disease, Memory, and Neuropsychology. Lisa A. VanWormer is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of West Florida. She is Director of the Attention and Memory Lab (uwf.edu/aml) researching cognitive aging, the positivity bias, and inhibitory processes of working memory and attention. James E. Arruda is Professor of Psychology and Department Chair at the University of West Florida. He is Director of the Neurocognition Lab studying cognitive and neural models of attention and electrophysiological correlates of cognition and behavior.