We compared emotional reactivity to affective pictures for 32 older (60-71 years) and 34 younger (18-23 years) adults. We collected the startle-blink reflex, N1 and P3 components of the probe-evoked event-related brain potential, corrugator electromyogram, heart rate, and self-report measures of pleasure and arousal. Self-report findings indicated that older, compared with younger, adults reported greater overall pleasure and arousal. Older adults also exhibited decreased N1 and P3 amplitude, corrugator activity, and heart rate deceleration compared with younger adults. The startle-blink reflex revealed that older adults exhibited increased startle-blink magnitude compared with younger adults during unpleasant pictures, with no age differences observed for pleasant and neutral contents. These age differences suggest that older adults have differential reactivity to affective picture viewing, and they indicate that age-related changes in emotion are not unitary across response systems.

The authors investigated the impact of emotion on the performance of a square-tracing task after participants (N = 40) were exposed to pleasant (P), unpleasant (U), and neutral (N) pictures. Physiological and self-report measures indexed affective valence and arousal. In Experiment 1, greater error followed exposure to 4 consecutive U images than exposure to 4 consecutive P images. Speed of performance did not vary as a function of valence. In Experiment 2, participants viewed 1 slide per trial within a modified exposure protocol. Speed of performance varied as a function of valence; faster performance followed U relative to P stimuli. Accuracy of performance did not vary between conditions. Corresponding self-report and physiological measures generally corroborated previous evidence. Findings collectively indicated that the length of exposure to affective stimuli mediates speed and accuracy of motor performance; compared with P stimuli, U stimuli led to either increased error (short exposure) or increased speed (multiple exposures). The authors conclude that brief and extended exposures to affective pictures have direct behavioral consequences, and they discuss the implications of that finding.

No abstract

Regular exercise was experimentally reduced to determine its effects on positive feeling states. Using ecological momentary assessments, 40 participants maintained their regular exercise routine on 3 days and were deprived of their scheduled exercise on 3 other days. They recorded their feeling states, using the Exercise-Induced Feeling Inventory, four times daily as well as prior to and following exercise. Multi-level modelling analyses controlling for diurnal variations in feeling states revealed that positive feeling states were elevated on days when exercise deprivation occurred compared with non-exercise days and when no deprivation manipulation occurred. People with lower exercise dependence symptoms felt better on days when they were deprived from exercise compared with non-exercise days, whereas people with higher exercise dependence symptoms felt about the same when they were deprived from exercise compared with non-exercise days. These findings demonstrate that positive feeling states occur following an acute bout of exercise and that exercise deprivation had a positive impact on feeling states, with the level of exercise dependence symptoms moderating this effect.

The purpose of this study was to examine trait levels of dissatisfaction with specific bodily regions and attentional characteristics associated with those regions among women high (HBD, n = 15) and low (LBD, n = 14) in body dissatisfaction. Separate laboratory visits were completed, during, which eye movements were recorded as participants viewed slides of self-physiques or model-physiques. Comparisons of search tendencies were made across the entire 5 s of slide presentation, and then within each of the ten 500 ms epochs that comprised the 5 s viewing period. The HBD group made initial fixations to the pelvis region proportionately more than the LBD group, and avoided looking at their own bodies relative to the LBD group. They also viewed the model's legs significantly longer than the LBD group. When considering the time course of attentional allocation, the HBD group preferentially viewed areas typical of dissatisfaction during the latter viewing periods, regardless of whether they were looking at themselves or the model. Results are discussed in the context of an integrated social cognitive view with regard to the formation of a negative body schema that both results from and then perpetuates the negative affective consequences that characterize individuals who are symptomatic for eating disorders.