ABSTRACT
Thus far, we have described the effects of emotion on memory performance in young (typically college-age) adults. In the following chapters, we shift our attention toward an examination of how the effects of emotion on memory change as adults age. In order to understand the effects of emotion on older adults’ memories, first it is necessary to discuss how the aging process affects cognitive and emotional processing more broadly. This chapter reviews the effects of aging on cognitive ability, and in Chapter 12, we consider the effects of aging on emotional processing. After these discussions, we begin our query into the effects of aging on memory for emotional information, examining the effects of aging on working memory (Chapter 13) and on long-term memory (Chapters 14 and 15). We describe evidence for a “positivity effect” with aging (described by Mather & Carstensen, 2005) and discuss the situations in which this positivity effect does, and does not, occur (Chapter 15). We conclude with a comparison of the effects of healthy aging and Alzheimer’s disease on emotional memory (Chapter 16).
