HSS: Looking, Feeling and Doing: The View from the Study of Ageing

In this talk, I will consider whether links between what we see, how we feel, and what behaviors we engage in vary as a function of age. I will first review evidence concerning possible age differences in affective experience: while some studies find more positive affective profiles with age, there is nonetheless significant variability in older adults’ affective experience. I will then present several studies using eye tracking finding age differences in visual attention towards emotional stimuli; more recently, we have tried to link looking patterns to real-time mood change. The basic finding from these studies is that older adults seem to benefit from strategies of visual disengagement, though it may depend on the functioning of their attentional system. These moderated effects may help explain the variability in older adults’ affective experience. Younger adults may actually benefit in their mood from engaging visually with negative stimuli. I will also link these patterns to downstream behavior in the context of negative health messages. Finally, recent extensions of this work to midlife and to mobile eye tracking will also be discussed.