Why the youth sense anger in faces
We tend to believe that older people are more positive and younger people are more sensitive to social cues (暗示).
Recently scientists investigated this idea by testing 10,000 men and women. They wanted to see if age affected a person's ability to identify facial emotions, such as fear and anger.
The researchers from McLean Hospital in the US used a Web-based platform to collect happiness data. It showed the participants two headshots (头部特写)of random people. They were then asked to identify which subject was angrier, happier, or more fearful.
The research found that younger people were able to better identify angry and fearful facial cues than older people.
"From studies and anecdotal evidence, we know that the everyday experiences of an adolescent are different from an older person, but we wanted to understand how these experiences might be linked with differences in basic emotion understanding,wrote Laura Germine, the study's senior author.
But what is it that makes young people more sensitive?
"This is the exact age when young people are most sensitive to forms of negative social cues, such as bullying,” Lauren Rutter, the study's lead author, told Science Daily. "The normal development of anger sensitivity can contribute to some of the challenges that arise during this phase of development.
On the contrary, across the whole 10,000-person survey, researchers found no decline in the perception (感知)of happiness among older participants.
“What's remarkable is that we see declines in many visual perceptual abilities as we get older, but here we did not see such declines in the perception of happiness,Germine told Neuro Science News.
She added that these findings fit well with other researches, showing that older adults tend to have more positive emotions and a positive outlook.
Following the paper's release, Rutter told Neuro Science News that gathering their primary research online allowed the team to research into a "much larger and more diverse sample set” than previous studies.
Title: Why the youth sense anger in faces | |
Purpose of the research | The idea |
Process of the research | The researchers |
Two | |
Participants were asked to identify the more | |
Younger people are | |
Adolescence is the exact age when anger sensitivity reaches its | |
Perception of happiness isn't on the | |
Self-assessment of the research | What the research proves |
In comparison with previous studies, the sample set of the research is superior in its size and |