Psychomotor Vigilance across Young and Older adults in the presence of Affective Primes

Abstract

Sustained attention is an important part of everyday cognitive functioning, yet the factors that shape it remain incompletely understood, particularly the role of emotional processes that operate below the threshold of conscious awareness. The present study examined how subliminal emotional priming influences psychomotor vigilance performance across two distinct age groups: young adults and older adults. Using a mixed factorial design, 120 participants were exposed to happy or sad facial primes in a standard task of psychomotor vigilance. The primed condition of the task was compared with a non-primed condition of the task comparing the performance of younger versus older adults. Reaction time, inter-stimulus interval sensitivity, and attentional lapses served as the primary performance indices. It was suggested that due to motivational shift with aging, older adults would respond faster to trails following positive primes (than negative primes) when compared with younger adults. The suggestion is embedded in the classic socio-emotional selectivity theory which suggests a motivational shift occurring with aging due to which older adults prioritize positive emotions over negative or neutral emotions/information. The findings are expected to shed light on how preconscious emotional information interacts with the sustained attention, and whether age-related shifts in affective processing style alter the way subliminal cues are integrated into moment-to-moment vigilance.