Age differences in socio-emotional feedback processing during learning: An ERP study

In an ever-changing environment, the ability to adapt behavior based on feedback is a crucial skill. Although this process is assumed to decline with age, initial evidence suggests that emotional information processing may help buffer against these age-related impairments. We therefore conducted a probabilistic learning task with emotional faces in two varying emotional intensities (weak vs. strong) to investigate whether healthy younger and older adults would benefit from strong emotional feedback during learning and whether these processes are reflected in feedback-related event related potentials (ERPs). N = 26 younger adults (mean age = 22.6, SD = 2.67 years) and n = 23 older adults (mean age = 71.9, SD = 3.60 years) took part in our study. Behavioral results showed that both age groups showed improved learning over time, but older adults particularly benefited from strong emotional feedback. ERPs revealed that the detection of unexpected events, reflected in the peak-to-peak FRN, was generally enhanced in older as compared to younger adults, possibly due to a generally enhanced motivational significance of socio-emotional stimuli. However, we could not find an effect of feedback condition for neither group. Moreover, working memory updating, reflected in the P3b, was modulated by emotional intensity in older adults, showing increased updating after strong emotional negative feedback, whereas younger adults did not use strong emotional, but rather negative feedback to update their working memory.