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Scientific article
English

The influence of inhibitory processes on affective theory of mind in young and old adults

Contributors

Mahy, Caitlin; Vetter, Nora; Kühn-Popp, Nina; Löcher, Carolin; Krautschuk, Susan; Kliegel, Matthias

Published in

Aging Neuropsychology and Cognition, vol. 21, no. 2, p. 129-145

Publication date

2014

Abstract

The primary aim of this study was to examine the impact of an inhibition manipulation on the effect of age on theory of mind (ToM) in an ecologically valid, affective ToM task. Participants were 30 young and 30 old adults. The Cambridge Mindreading Face-Voice Battery was used to measure ToM; in addition, measures of fluid and crystallized intelligence were taken. Participants were subjected to three levels of inhibitory demand during ToM reasoning: emotional inhibition, non-emotional inhibition, and no inhibition. Old adults performed worse than young adults. The emotional and non-emotional inhibition conditions resulted in worse ToM performance compared to the no inhibition condition. There were no differences in the impact of the inhibition conditions on old and young adults. Regression analyses suggested that old adults' crystallized intelligence was a significant predictor of ToM performance, whereas it did not predict young adults' ToM performance. Results are discussed in terms of verbal ability as a possible compensatory mechanism in coping with verbal inhibitory load in ToM reasoning.

UNIGE affiliation entities

Citation (ISO format)

MAHY, Caitlin et al. The influence of inhibitory processes on affective theory of mind in young and old adults. In: Aging Neuropsychology and Cognition, 2014, vol. 21, n° 2, p. 129–145. doi: 10.1080/13825585.2013.789096

Main files (1)

Article (Published version)

Identifiers

Journal ISSN

1382-5585
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Technical informations

Creation

04/10/2017 10:16:00

First validation

04/10/2017 10:16:00

Update

15/03/2023 02:12:51

Status update

15/03/2023 02:12:50

Last indexation

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