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Affective processing and emotional experience may change with age. Because findings of age differences in affective experiences are mixed even in studies using standardized stimuli, this study assessed age differences along gradual increases in negative arousal. Younger (20-30 years) and older (70-80 years) healthy adults (n=78) viewed 110 neutral to negative pictures (IAPS) while intensity ratings and electrodermal activity were recorded. Results showed that age had opposite effects on intensity ratings and electrodermal activity over gradual increases in normative arousal. Whereas older adults showed greater increases in intensity ratings than younger adults, they showed attenuated electrodermal activity, especially at high negative arousal. Because self-reports of arousal capture various aspects of affective processes (e.g., physiological changes as well as experience), effects of age may vary for these different aspects.

Compared with nonarousing stimuli, arousing stimuli enhance memory performance. The most robust effects have been reported for negative stimuli, "the negativity effect," although a number of mediating factors prevent definitive conclusions, for example, age, gender, memory task, retention period, and alternative arousal measures. To clarify whether the negativity effect is robust across age, gender, and time, we studied incidental recognition of neutral and negative pictures from the International Affective Picture System (Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert, 1999) in healthy younger and older adults--women and men--after a 1-year retention interval. Memory performance was related to 2 arousal measures at encoding, skin conductance response (SCR), and intensity rating of unpleasantness. The results showed weaker overall memory performance for older adults compared with younger adults. The negativity effect on accuracy (d') was gender dependent and age independent. In contrast, the negativity effect on response bias (c) interacted with age, but not gender, being weaker for older adults. Despite significant differences in arousal (SCR and arousal rating) between negative and neutral pictures, the correlations between arousal measures and memory performance were weak. Controlling for age and gender, a small negative partial correlation was found between arousal ratings and accuracy. The results extend previous studies by relating long-term recognition to both age and gender as well as to arousal at encoding.

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