Article
Adult Age Differences in the Interpretation of Surprised Facial Expressions
Emotion
(2017)
Abstract
Research on adult age differences in the interpretation of facial expressions has yet to examine
evaluations of surprised faces, which signal that an unexpected and ambiguous event has occurred in the
expresser’s environment. The present study examined whether older and younger adults differed in their
interpretations of the affective valence of surprised faces. Specifically, we examined older and younger
participants’ evaluations of happy, angry, and surprised facial expressions. We predicted that, on the
basis of age-related changes in the processing of emotional information, older adults would evaluate
surprised faces more positively than would younger adults. The results indicated that older adults
interpreted surprised faces more positively than did their younger counterparts. These findings reveal a
novel age-related positivity effect in the interpretation of surprised faces, suggesting that older adults
imbue ambiguous facial expressions—that is, expressions that lack either positive or negative facial
actions—with positive meaning.
Keywords
- aging,
- emotion,
- facial expressions,
- surprise,
- positivity effect
Disciplines
Publication Date
2017
DOI
10.1037/emo0000234
Citation Information
Michael M. Shuster, Joseph A. Mikels and Linda A. Camras. "Adult Age Differences in the Interpretation of Surprised Facial Expressions" Emotion Vol. 17 Iss. 2 (2017) p. 191 - 195 ISSN: 1528-3542 Available at: http://works.bepress.com/linda_camras/54/