Effects of Induced Emotional State on Lexical Processing in Younger and Older Adults.

The authors investigated the effects of an induced emotional mood state on lexical decision task (LDT) performance in 50 young adults and 25 older adults. Participants were randomly assigned to either happy or sad mood induction conditions. An emotional mood state was induced by having the participa...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Journal of Psychology Vol. 137; no. 3; pp. 262 - 273
Main Authors:	Ferraro, F. Richard, King, Brent, Ronning, Beth
Format:	Article
Published:	Taylor & Francis Ltd May 2003
Subjects:	Word recognition Mood (Psychology) Music psychology
Online Access:	View this record in EBSCOhost

Description
Summary:	The authors investigated the effects of an induced emotional mood state on lexical decision task (LDT) performance in 50 young adults and 25 older adults. Participants were randomly assigned to either happy or sad mood induction conditions. An emotional mood state was induced by having the participants listen to 8 min of classical music previously rated to induce happy or sad moods. Results replicated previous studies with young adults (i.e., sad-induced individuals responded faster to sad words and happy-induced individuals responded faster to happy words) and extended this pattern to older adults. Results are discussed with regard to information processing, aging, and emotion. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.