Perceived duration of emotional events: evidence for a positivity effect in older adults

BACKGROUND/STUDY CONTEXT: Arousal and negative affect modulate the effect of emotion on the subjective experience of the passage of time. Given that older adults are less aroused by negative emotional stimuli, and report lower levels of negative affect, compared with younger adults, the present study examined whether the effect of emotion on time perception differed in older and younger adults.

Participants performed a temporal bisection task for emotional (i.e., angry, sad, happy) and neutral facial expressions presented at varying temporal intervals.

Older adults perceived the duration of both positive and threatening events longer than neutral events, whereas younger adults only perceived threatening events longer than neutral events.

The results, which are partially consistent with the positivity effect of aging postulated by the socioemotional selectivity theory, are the first to show how the effect of emotion on perceived duration affects older adults, and support previous research indicating that only threatening events prolong perceived duration in younger adults.