Age Differences in Positivity During Episodic Future Thought

Lisa Emery, Stephanie Hale, & Emily Booze

agelabs.appstate.edu

Episodic Future Thought

• “Mental Time Travel” into the future to imagine specific episodes

• Highly related to autobiographical memory– Activates similar brain regions (e.g., Addis, Wong & Schacter,

2008a; Viard et al. 2011)

– Shows similar phenomenological characteristics (e.g., D’Argembeau & Van der Linden, 2004)

– Performance on ABM & EFT tasks highly correlated (Hill & Emery, 2013)

Aging & EFT

• Older adults produce fewer episodic details in EFT (and ABM) than young adults (Addis et al. 2008b; Levine et al., 2002; Piolino et al., 2010)

• Attributed primarily to decline in associative memory and/or executive function

• Recent studies suggest memory isn’t the only age difference (Gaesser et al., 2001; Rendell et al., 2012).

Aging & Emotion

• “Positivity Bias”: Compared to the young, older adults: – Remember past events more positively (Kennedy,

Mather, & Carstensen, 2004; Comblain, D’Argembeau, & Van der Linden, 2005)

– Use more positive and fewer negative words when describing memories (Pennebaker & Stone, 2003; Schryer et al., 2012)

The Current Study

• Does the “positivity bias” extend to future events

Method

Participants

• Young adults (ages 20-30; M = 23.8; N = 19)• Middle-aged adults (ages 40-50; M = 45.2; N = 16)• Older adults (ages 60-70; M = 63.6; N = 13)

Method

Materials & Procedure

• Cue Word Retrieval/Construction• 2 (Event Direction: Past vs. Future) x 2 (Event

Distance: Near vs. Far)– 4 trials of each type, 16 trials total– 3 minutes to retrieve and describe the event

Method

• Linguistic Inquiry & Word Count (LIWC2007; Pennebaker et al., 2007)– Word counts• Positive Words (e.g., Love, Sweet, Nice)• Negative Words (e.g., Hurt, Ugly, Nasty)

Results

Past Future0.00

0.20

0.40

0.60

0.80

1.00

1.20

YoungMiddleOld

Neg

ativ

e Em

otio

n W

ords

Results

Past Future0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

YoungMiddleOld

Posi

tive

Emot

ion

Wor

ds

Results

Past Near Future Near0.00

0.50

1.00

1.50

2.00

2.50

3.00

3.50

YoungMiddleOld

Posi

tive

Emot

ion

Wor

ds

Past Far Future Far0.00

0.50

1.00

1.50

2.00

2.50

3.00

3.50

4.00

YoungMiddleOld

Posi

tive

Emot

ion

Wor

ds

Results

Past Near Future Near0.00

0.50

1.00

1.50

2.00

2.50

3.00

3.50

YoungMiddleOld

Posi

tive

Emot

ion

Wor

ds

Past Far Future Far0.00

0.50

1.00

1.50

2.00

2.50

3.00

3.50

4.00

YoungMiddleOld

Posi

tive

Emot

ion

Wor

ds

Results

Past Future0

0.02

0.04

0.06

0.08

0.1

0.12

0.14

NearFar

"Dea

th"

Wor

ds

Conclusions & Future Directions

• Past events = reduced negativity• Future events = increased positivity

Conclusions & Future Directions

• Might age-related emotional changes impact memory specificity?– Positive mood produces greater heuristic

processing (Emery, Hess, & Elliot, 2012)

– Repeated use of “Functional Avoidance” of negative or traumatic memories may lead to “overgeneral autobiographical memory” (Williams et al., 2007)

Conclusions & Future Directions

Emery & Griffin, 2014

Come see our posters!

Poster Session 2: Friday April 4, 4:00 – 6:30 PMPoster 63: AGE DIFFERENCES IN PERFORMANCE ON FINANCIAL GAMES Elizabeth Payment, Lisa Emery, Erica Camp

Poster Session 4: Saturday, April 5, 4:00 PM – 6:30 PMPoster 9: AGE-RELATED DIFFERENCES IN RETRIEVAL OF EPISODIC AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORIES Heather Burkett, Simona Gizdarska, Meagan Griffin, Lisa Emery

Reprints of presentations, papers, & posters @agelabs.appstate.edu