A Comparative Analysis of Emotion Recognition: Young Versus Older Adults Across Gender and Cultures

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to investigate emotion recognition in adults across age, gender and culture. Using the six basic emotions of anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise as stimuli, the aim is to examine whether men and women benefit differently from eye and mouth gazing. Comparisons will be made, first, between male and female participants, second, between young and older adults and third, between Europeans and South-east Asian Chinese. The dependent measure will be correct responses to emotion recognition items. Six basic emotions were shown to 108 young adults (M20 years) and 109 older adults (M70 years) from European and Asian Chinese descent. The two-part experiment which consisted of a web-based survey and the use of an eye-tracker, was conducted in New Zealand (NZ) and Singapore (SG) with facilities provided by the Psychology departments of the University of Otago and the National University of Singapore respectively. I found age-related deficits across cultures and disparity in emotion recognition with NZ Europeans participants outperforming their south-east Asian Chinese counterparts in all emotion recognition tasks. While older women benefitted more from nose gazing, older men’s mouth gazing was associated with worse emotion recognition. In addition, higher depression and loneliness, and lower well-being correlated with worse emotion recognition for younger adults.