Recent studies have suggested that older individuals selectively forget negative information. However, findings on a positivity effect in the attention of older adults have been more mixed. In the current study, eye tracking was used to record visual fixation in nearly real-time to investigate whether older individuals show a positivity effect in their visual attention to emotional information. Young and old individuals (N = 64) viewed pairs of synthetic faces that included the same face in a nonemotional expression and in 1 of 4 emotional expressions (happiness, sadness, anger, or fear). Gaze patterns were recorded as individuals viewed the face pairs. Older adults showed an attentional preference toward happy faces and away from angry ones; the only preference shown by young adults was toward afraid faces. The age groups were not different in overall cognitive functioning, suggesting that these attentional differences are specific and motivated rather than due to general cognitive change with age.

Research suggests a positivity effect in older adults' memory for emotional material, but the evidence from the attentional domain is mixed. The present study combined 2 methodologies for studying preferences in visual attention, eye tracking, and dot-probe, as younger and older adults viewed synthetic emotional faces. Eye tracking most consistently revealed a positivity effect in older adults' attention, so that older adults showed preferential looking toward happy faces and away from sad faces. Dot-probe results were less robust, but in the same direction. Methodological and theoretical implications for the study of socioemotional aging are discussed.

Empirical studies have frequently linked negative attentional biases with attentional dysfunction and negative moods; however, far less research has focused on how attentional deployment can be an adaptive strategy that regulates emotional experience. We argue that attention may be an invaluable tool for promoting emotion regulation. Accordingly, we present evidence that selective attention to positive information reflects emotion regulation, and that regulating attention is a critical component of the emotion regulatory process. Furthermore, attentional regulation can be successfully trained through repeated practice. We ultimately propose a model of attention training methodologies integrating attention-dependent emotion regulation strategies with attention networks. While additional interdisciplinary research is needed to bolster these nascent findings, meditative practices appear to be among the most effective training methodologies in enhancing emotional well-being. Further exploration of the positive and therapeutic qualities of attention warrants the empirical attention of social and personality psychologists.Keywords emotion regulation; attention; attention training; selective attention; meditation Attention is a most valuable instrument that serves as a telescope through which we select, bring into focus, and magnify the stimuli we experience in our world (Wallace, 1999). In Principles of Psychology, William James writes, "My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items which I notice shape my mind -without selective interest, experience is an utter chaos" (1890, p. 402). As James suggests, without our ability to use attention as a tool to hone specific aspects of our experience, we would be lost in superfluous information. Salient sensory, emotional, and mental information is filtered, processed, and analyzed through various attentional processes, which can be automatically or consciously regulated (Calvo & Nummenmaa, 2007). Clearly, what we attend to can shape our experiences, good or bad. How successful individuals are at influencing their attentional processes can dictate their subsequent affective experience and behavioral trajectories. Although individual differences exist in the ability to regulate attention, recent literature has suggested that the processes involved in attentional regulation can be trained and improved through repeated practice (Lutz, Slagter, Dunne, & Davidson, 2008;Rueda, Rothbart, Saccomanno, & Posner, 2007). If attention can be trained, then it may be used to actively guide individuals' emotion regulation processes and downstream behavior, ultimately enhancing subjective well-being. That is, people could learn to selectively attend to specific types of information in the service of optimizing their emotional experience.Please address correspondence to: Derek M. Isaacowitz, Department of Psychology, Brandeis University, MS 062, Waltham, Massachusetts 02454-9110. dmi@brandeis.edu. Heather Wadlinger is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Prevention Rese...

In an attempt to investigate the impact of positive emotions on visual attention within the context of Fredrickson's (1998) broaden-and-build model, eye tracking was used in two studies to measure visual attentional preferences of college students (n=58, n=26) to emotional pictures. Half of each sample experienced induced positive mood immediately before viewing slides of three similarlyvalenced images, in varying central-peripheral arrays. Attentional breadth was determined by measuring the percentage viewing time to peripheral images as well as by the number of visual saccades participants made per slide. Consistent with Fredrickson's theory, the first study showed that individuals induced into positive mood fixated more on peripheral stimuli than did control participants; however, this only held true for highly-valenced positive stimuli. Participants under induced positive mood also made more frequent saccades for slides of neutral and positive valence. A second study showed that these effects were not simply due to differences in emotional arousal between stimuli. Selective attentional broadening to positive stimuli may act both to facilitate later building of resources as well as to maintain current positive affective states. Keywords Positive mood; Visual attention Positive mood broadens visual attentionThe broaden-and-build model of positive emotions (Fredrickson, 1998) suggests that positive emotions, such as joy, interest, contentment, elation, or love, temporarily broaden an individual's thought-action repertoire, thereby promoting the expansion of attention or interest in the environment and encouraging play and exploration. In turn, these broadening behaviors build lasting resources such as physical agility, social relationships, and heightened psychological resilience. This stockpiling of resources and skills allow an organism to be better prepared for future circumstances in which they might face adverse conditions or negative affective states (Fredrickson, 1998(Fredrickson, , 2000a(Fredrickson, , 2001. The current study focused on testing the broadening component of the model, which has received relatively scant attention in previous research on the theory. Research demonstrating broadeningWhat exactly is broadening? Fredrickson (2000b, Article 7, 9) defines broadening as "having a wider array of perceptions, thoughts, and actions, with the consequences of broadening being flexible, creative and unusual thinking." Thus, research demonstrating broadening would show that positive emotions, as compared to negative or neutral emotions, act to expand thoughts or actions towards incorporating more aspects of one's environment. By having individuals watch © Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 2006 dmi@brandeis.edu . NIH Public Access Author ManuscriptMotiv Emot. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2010 April 28. NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript short films, induced joy, serenity, fear, and sadness in individuals, and then had them perform a global-l...

Individuals with a positive visual attention bias may use their gaze to regulate their emotions while under stress. The current study experimentally trained differential biases in participants' (N = 55) attention toward positive or neutral information. In each training trial, one positive and one neutral word were presented and then a visual target appeared consistently in the location of the positive or neutral words. Participants were instructed to make a simple perceptual discrimination response to the target. Immediately before and after attentional training, participants were exposed to a stress task consisting of viewing a series of extremely negative images while having their eyes tracked. Visual fixation time to negative images, assessed with an eye tracker, served as an indicator of using gaze to successfully regulate emotion. Those participants experimentally trained to selectively attend to affectively positive information looked significantly less at the negative images in the visual stress task following the attentional training, thus demonstrating a learned aversion to negative stimuli. Participants trained toward neutral information did not show this biased gaze pattern.