Older Adults Respond Quickly to Angry Faces Despite Labeling Difficulty

Two experiments examined young-old differences in speed of identifying emotion faces and labeling of emotion expressions. In Experiment 1, participants were presented arrays of 9 faces in which all faces were identical (neutral expression) or 1 was different (angry, sad, or happy). Both young and older adults were faster identifying faces as different when a discrepant face expressed anger than when it expressed sadness or happiness, and this was true whether the faces were schematics or photographs of real people. In Experiment 2, participants labeled the Experiment 1 schematic and real faces. Older adults were significantly worse than young when labeling angry schematic faces, and angry and sad real faces. Together, this research indicates no age differences in identifying discrepant angry faces from an array, although older adults do have difficulty choosing the correct emotion label for angry faces.