Age-related differences in the evaluation of highly arousing language.

IF 3.7 1区心理学 Q1 GERONTOLOGY

Psychology and Aging Pub Date : 2024-05-01 DOI:10.1037/pag0000809

Meredith A Shafto, Lise Abrams, Lori E James

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Emotional properties of words can profoundly affect their processing, depending on both the valence (pleasantness) and the degree of arousal (excitation) that the word elicits. Words that are strongly emotionally arousing (such as taboo words) can interfere with subsequent language processing (White & Abrams, 2021). However, little is known about whether or how aging affects the processing of highly arousing language. The present study provides a characterization of how adults across the lifespan evaluate highly arousing language with a simple rating task that included taboo words, which have previously been used to examine lexical interference caused by arousal, and humorous words, which are also highly arousing without being negatively valenced. While arousal ratings were strongly positively correlated with both tabooness and humor ratings for young adults, these relationships weakened with age and overall arousal ratings were lower for middle-aged and older adults compared to young adults. Age effects cannot be readily accounted for by age-related differences in psychosocial variables such as self-reported profanity avoidance or religiosity. The effect of age on arousal should be considered in the design of studies examining age-related changes in emotional language processing. Furthermore, age differences in arousal should be considered as a potential mechanism in studies exploring emotional language processing across adulthood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

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评价高刺激性语言时与年龄有关的差异。

词语的情感属性会深刻影响其语言处理过程，这取决于词语所引起的情感（愉快度）和唤醒（兴奋度）程度。强烈激发情绪的词语（如禁忌词语）会干扰后续的语言处理（White & Abrams，2021 年）。然而，人们对衰老是否或如何影响高度唤醒语言的处理知之甚少。本研究通过一个简单的评分任务，对成年人在不同的生命周期中如何评价高唤醒性语言进行了描述，该任务包括禁忌词（以前曾被用来研究唤醒引起的词汇干扰）和幽默词（也是高唤醒性的，但没有负面评价）。虽然年轻成人的唤醒评分与禁忌词和幽默词的评分呈强烈的正相关，但这些关系随着年龄的增长而减弱，与年轻成人相比，中老年人的总体唤醒评分较低。年龄效应并不能通过与年龄相关的社会心理变量（如自我报告的亵渎回避或宗教信仰）的差异轻易解释。在设计与年龄相关的情绪语言处理变化的研究时，应考虑年龄对唤醒的影响。此外，在探索成年期情绪语言处理的研究中，也应将唤醒的年龄差异视为一种潜在机制。(PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, 版权所有）。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Psychology and Aging Multiple-

CiteScore

6.40

自引率

10.80%

发文量

期刊介绍： Psychology and Aging publishes original articles on adult development and aging. Such original articles include reports of research that may be applied, biobehavioral, clinical, educational, experimental (laboratory, field, or naturalistic studies), methodological, or psychosocial. Although the emphasis is on original research investigations, occasional theoretical analyses of research issues, practical clinical problems, or policy may appear, as well as critical reviews of a content area in adult development and aging. Clinical case studies that have theoretical significance are also appropriate. Brief reports are acceptable with the author"s agreement not to submit a full report to another journal.