Aging and Motivated Condition The Positivity Effect in Attention and Memory

Premeditated progressions in older people’s emotional attention as well as memory can possibly play a critical role in the age variation in discussion. As such, older people reveal more emotionally acceptable memory falsification for autographical information as well as past choices as opposed to younger adults. Additionally, the authors insist that when exposed to stimuli which has variance in affective valence, positive items make up a large percentage of old adults’ succeeding memories as opposed to those of young adults. The positivity effect in topic specifically of older adults’ minds is often most likely as a result of their enhanced focus on emotional regulation in conjunction with the regulation being put in place by various cognitive control mechanisms that foster positive and in the same time reduce negative information.

As for me, I greatly insist that the article keeps an in-depth analysis on the difference between old adults and young adults specifically on the positive effect in memory and attention. Mather and Carstensen (2005) argue that in most cases, the physical health and appearance in juxtaposition with cognitive abilities of individuals especially the elderly reduce gradually. Moreover, the frequency of emotions equally decreases all through a range of maturity and the it is approximated at about the age of sixty. On the other hand, the research depicts that positive affect is often greatly stable all through adulthood, however, some psychologists are of the opinion that modest increases or in some cases experience slight decreases. As a result, when analyzing the rationale between an individual’s gradual physical and mental changes and negative to positive affect improvement all through adulthood.

From this argument, it is essential to get an explanation which proofs that across the same years among the elderly, cognitive and physical health relatively declines as time goes by. However, younger adults are not able to do the same as they do not maximize on the positive emotions as is the case of the older adults. In addition, they take note of the negative emotions something the older generation do not do at all. As illustrated in the figure 2, younger adults tend to dwell more on negative emotions compared to the older adults while older adults dwell more on positive emotions compared to the younger adults. The results were also representing taking into consideration the number of pictures expressing different emotions a younger adult and an older adult was able to recall.

As illustrated in figure 3, the younger adults recalled nearly equal number of pictures containing both positive and negative emotions. There are also other reasons such as the amygdala which is responsible for consolidating memory for negative and threatening information. The study was limited in trying to prove the actual contribution in the decline in the amygdala in explaining the growing stability in emotions as one gets older. The study also struggled to explain the exact stimuli that is affected by the overall decline in the amygdala. For these reasons, the researchers identified questions for future research. One of them is the need to understand the possibility of older adults engaging in other types of emotional control as opposed to those of selective attention to emotions.

Aging should be a motivator to focus on positive thoughts rather than dwelling no the negative. This is because at that time one has lived nearly all his/her life and will have realized the significance of being positive about life. The follow-up questions would touch on the aspect of technology in influencing memory; will the growing reliance on artificial intelligence have an effect on old age memory? This project has been instrumental in helping me understand how research in the field of psychology is carried out. I have been able to understand the significance of qualitative studies as they often inform most research in psychology. I have also understood how the research relies on human development theories and seeks to challenge how they influence human interaction and growth.