Social and Emotional
Behavior in Aging
Robert W. Levenson, Ph.D.
University of California, Berkeley
ESRC/NIA Workshop on Social
Neuroscience of Aging
July 15, 2008
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Laboratory Studies of Emotional Reactivity,
Regulation, and Perception
Emotional Memories
Acoustic Startle
Films
Photos
Directed Facial Actions
Marital Interaction
Measure: Subjective emotional experience, expressive behavior, peripheral physiology
Level of functioning
Results: Emotion
and Aging
100
80
Everything else
Normal aging 1
Normal aging 2
FTLD
60
40
20
0
20s 30s 40s 50s 60s 70s 80s 90s
Age
• Pretty much
everything else
• Normal aging 1: Most
aspects of emotional
functioning
• Normal aging 2:
Emotional expertise
and compassion
• Frontotemporal
dementia (FTLD):
Most aspects of
emotional functioning
Normal
FTLD
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Special issues with laboratory
studies of emotion and aging
• Samples
– Normal
•
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Representativeness
Stimuli
Measures
Frustration, endurance
– Patients
• Consent
• Stimuli
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Extras
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Method: View video of 10 couples discussing a marital problem for 3 minutes.
Answer two questions:
(1) Will they still be married five years later?
(2) (2) Rate their marital satisfaction at the time of the taping on a 1-10 scale.
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Emotions are highly vulnerable to certain
neurological diseases
•
Frontotemporal Lobar
Degeneration (FTLD)
Characteristics
– Degenerative
– 15% of all dementias (often
misdiagnosed)
– Onset before age 65
– Rapid progression
– Clear-cut anatomical
markers
– Involvement of brain areas
important for emotion and
empathy (e.g., amygdala,
insula, anterior cingulate,
anterior temporal lobes,
frontal lobes)
– Changes in emotion,
personality, socioemotional behavior precede
gross cognitive changes
Normal
FTLD
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Research Team
•
Berkeley Psychophysiology
Laboratory: Current members
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Robert Levenson: Director
Elizabeth Ascher
Janet Eckart
Anett Gyurak
Sarah Holley
Anita Madan
Megan McCarthy
Kim McCoy
Kristin Nelson
Ben Seider
Virginia Sturm
Jocelyn Sze
Terri Teshiba
Kelly Werner
Patrick Whalen
Joyce Yuan
•
•
Berkeley Psychophysiology Laboratory: Past
members involved in the reported research
– Rachel Ebling
– Barbara Fredrickson
– James Gross
– Gilad Hirschberger
– Dacher Keltner
– Nnamdi Pole
– Nicole Roberts
– Lani Shiota
– Jose Soto
– Jeanne Tsai
– Ute Kunzmann
Other collaborators in the reported research
– Laura Carstensen (Stanford)
– Paul Ekman (UCSF)
– Wallace Friesen (U. of Kentucky)
– John Gottman (U. of Washington)
– Bruce Miller (UCSF)
– Howard Rosen (UCSF)
Research supported by grants from the National Institute
on Aging and the National Institute of Mental Health
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