A note on age differences in mood-congruent vs. mood-incongruent emotion processing in faces

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Cognitive Neuroscience

Background:

• Emotion perception is crucial for social interaction.
• The interplay between experienced mood and emotion perception is complex and may vary with age.
• Previous research suggests potential mood-regulatory functions of emotion perception.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if experienced mood affects emotion perception in faces and if this is mood-congruent or incongruent.
• To examine age-group differences in mood and emotion perception.
• To explore the impact of temporal sequences on emotion perception and assess for mood-regulatory effects.

Main Methods:

• 154 adults across three age groups (younger, middle-aged, older) provided multidimensional emotion ratings for 1026 facial stimuli.
• A multidimensional rating approach analyzed the likelihood of perceiving additional emotions, controlling for basic emotion recognition.
• Crossed random effects analyses were employed to examine mood-congruent and incongruent perception, age differences, temporal effects, and mood regulation.

Main Results:

• A mood-congruent relationship was found between experienced mood and perceived emotions in faces.
• Older adults showed a stronger mood-congruent effect, perceiving happiness more when in a positive mood and less when in a negative mood, unlike younger adults.
• Temporal sequence significantly affected emotion perception, but no evidence supported a shift from mood-congruent to incongruent responses over time or a mood-regulatory effect.

Conclusions:

• Experienced mood influences facial emotion perception, with older adults exhibiting a more pronounced mood-congruent bias.
• Emotion perception in faces does not appear to serve a mood-regulatory function, nor does it consistently shift towards incongruent perception over time.
• Age is a significant factor in how experienced mood modulates the perception of emotions in others' faces.