Exploring emotional expression recognition in aging adults using the Moving Window Technique

Adult aging is associated with difficulties in recognizing negative facial expressions such as fear and anger. However, happiness and disgust recognition is generally found to be less affected. Eye-tracking studies indicate that the diagnostic features of fearful and angry faces are situated in the upper regions of the face (the eyes), and for happy and disgusted faces in the lower regions (nose and mouth). These studies also indicate age-differences in visual scanning behavior, suggesting a role for attention in emotion recognition deficits in older adults. However, because facial features can be processed extrafoveally, and expression recognition occurs rapidly, eye-tracking has been questioned as a measure of attention during emotion recognition. In this study, the Moving Window Technique (MWT) was used as an alternative to the conventional eye-tracking technology. By restricting the visual field to a moveable window, this technique provides a more direct measure of attention. We found a strong bias to explore the mouth across both age groups. Relative to young adults, older adults focused less on the left eye, and marginally more on the mouth and nose. Despite these different exploration patterns, older adults were most impaired in recognition accuracy for disgusted expressions. Correlation analysis revealed that among older adults, more mouth exploration was associated with faster recognition of both disgusted and happy expressions. As a whole, these findings suggest that in aging there are both attentional differences and perceptual deficits contributing to less accurate emotion recognition.成年衰老与识别恐惧、愤怒等负面面部表情的困难密切相关。然而，快乐与厌恶表情的识别通常受衰老的影响较小。眼动追踪（eye-tracking）研究表明，恐惧与愤怒面部表情的诊断性特征位于面部上部（眼部区域），而快乐与厌恶面部表情的诊断性特征则分布于面部下部（鼻部与嘴部区域）。此类研究还揭示了视觉扫描行为的年龄差异，提示注意力机制在老年人的情绪识别障碍中扮演了重要角色。不过，由于面部特征可经中央凹外加工完成，且表情识别过程往往快速发生，眼动追踪作为情绪识别过程中注意力测量手段的合理性受到了质疑。本研究采用移动窗口技术（Moving Window Technique, MWT）作为传统眼动追踪技术的替代方案。通过将视野限制在可移动的窗口范围内，该技术能够更直接地测量个体的注意力分配情况。研究发现，两个年龄组的被试均表现出对嘴部区域的显著探索偏好。与年轻成年人相比，老年人对左眼的注视时长更少，而对嘴部与鼻部的注视则略微增多。尽管二者的视觉探索模式存在上述差异，老年人在厌恶表情的识别准确率上受损最为严重。相关分析显示，在老年群体中，更多的嘴部区域探索与厌恶及快乐表情的更快识别速度存在显著关联。总体而言，本研究结果表明，衰老过程中同时存在注意力分配差异与感知功能缺陷，二者共同导致了情绪识别准确率的下降。