Sidebar Title
2011 Publications
Isaacowitz, D.M., & Choi, Y. (2011). The malleability of age-related positive gaze preferences: Training to change gaze and mood. Emotion, 11, 90-100.
Older adults show positive gaze preferences, but to what extent are these preferences malleable? Examining the plasticity of age-related gaze preferences may provide a window into their origins. We therefore designed an attentional training procedure to assess the degree to which we could shift gaze and gaze-related mood in both younger and older adults. Participants completed either a positive or negative dot-probe training. Before and after the attentional training, we obtained measures of fixations to negatively valenced images along with concurrent mood ratings. We found differential malleability of gaze and mood by age: for young adults, negative training resulted in fewer posttraining fixations to the most negative areas of the images, whereas positive training appeared more successful in changing older adults’ fixation patterns. Young adults did not differ in their moods as a function of training, whereas older adults in the train negative group had the worst moods after training. Implications for the etiology of age-related positive gaze preferences are considered.
Isaacowitz, D.M., & Murphy, N.A. (2011). Aging eyes facing an emotional world: The role of motivated gaze. In R. B. Adams, N. Ambady, K. Nakayama, & S. Shimojo (Eds.), The Science of Social Vision (pp. 133-150). New York: Oxford University Press.
Wadlinger, H.A. & Isaacowitz, D.M. (2011). Fixing our focus: Training attention to regulate emotion. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 15, 75-102.
Empirical studies have frequently linked negative attentional biases with attentional dysfunction and negative moods; however, far less research has focused on how attentional deployment can be an adaptive strategy that regulates emotional experience. The authors argue that attention may be an invaluable tool for promoting emotion regulation. Accordingly, they present evidence that selective attention to positive information reflects emotion regulation and that regulating attention is a critical component of the emotion regulatory process. Furthermore, attentional regulation can be successfully trained through repeated practice. The authors ultimately propose a model of attention training methodologies integrating attention dependent emotion regulation strategies with attention networks. Although additional interdisciplinary research is needed to bolster these nascent findings, meditative practices appear to be among the most effective training methodologies in enhancing emotional well-being. Further exploration of the positive and therapeutic qualities of attention warrants the empirical attention of social and personality psychologists.