The links between emotions, bio-regulatory processes, and economic decision-making are well-established in the context of age-related changes in fluid, real-time, decision competency. The objective of the research reported here is to assess the relative contributions, interactions, and impacts of affective and cognitive intelligence in economic, value-based decision-making amongst older adults. Additionally, we explored this decision-making competency in the context of the neurobiology of aging by examining the neuroanatomical correlates of intelligence and decision-making in an aging cohort. Thirty-nine, healthy, community dwelling older adults were administered the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), an ecologically valid laboratory measure of complex, economic decision-making; along with standardized, performance-based measures of cognitive and emotional intelligence (EI). A smaller subset of this group underwent structural brain scans from which thicknesses of the frontal, parietal, temporal, occipital, cingulate cortices and their sub-sections, were computed. Fluid (online processing) aspects of Perceptual Reasoning cognitive intelligence predicted superior choices on the IGT. However, older adults with higher overall emotional intelligence (EI) and higher Experiential EI area/sub-scores learned faster to make better choices on the IGT, even after controlling for cognitive intelligence and its area scores. Thickness of the left rostral anterior cingulate (associated with fluid affective, processing) mediated the relationship between age and Experiential EI. Thickness of the right transverse temporal gyrus moderated the rate of learning on the IGT. In conclusion, our data suggest that fluid processing, which involves “online,” bottom-up, cognitive processing, predicts value-based decision-making amongst older adults, while crystallized intelligence, which relies on “offline” previously acquired knowledge, does not. However, only emotional intelligence, especially its fluid “online” aspects of affective processing predicts the rate of learning in situations of complex choice, especially when there is a paucity of cues/information available to guide decision-making. Age-related effects on these cognitive, affective and decision mechanisms may have neuroanatomical correlates, especially in regions that form a subset of the human mirror-neuron and mentalizing systems. While superior decision-making may be stereotypically associated with “smarter people” (i.e., higher cognitive intelligence), our data indicate that emotional intelligence has a significant role to play in the economic decisions of older adults.

中文翻译：

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情绪与认知智力在老年人经济决策中的作用

情绪、生物调节过程和经济决策之间的联系是在与年龄相关的流动、实时决策能力变化的背景下建立起来的。本文报告的研究目的是评估情感和认知智力在老年人基于价值的经济决策中的相对贡献、相互作用和影响。此外，我们通过检查老龄群体中智力和决策的神经解剖学相关性，在衰老神经生物学的背景下探索了这种决策能力。39 名健康的社区居住老年人接受了爱荷华州赌博任务 (IGT)，这是一项对复杂的经济决策进行生态有效的实验室测量；以及基于绩效的标准化认知和情商 (EI) 测量。该组中的一小部分人接受了结构性脑扫描，计算了额叶、顶叶、颞叶、枕叶、扣带皮层及其子部分的厚度。感知推理认知智能的流动（在线处理）方面预测了 IGT 的更好选择。然而，具有较高整体情商 (EI) 和较高体验式 EI 领域/子分数的老年人，即使在控制了认知智力及其领域分数之后，也能更快地在 IGT 上做出更好的选择。左喙前扣带回的厚度（与液体情感、处理相关）介导了年龄和经验EI之间的关系。右侧颞横回的厚度调节了 IGT 的学习速率。总之，我们的数据表明，涉及“在线”、自下而上的认知处理的流体处理可以预测老年人基于价值的决策，而依赖于“离线”先前获得的知识的结晶智力则不能预测老年人基于价值的决策。 。然而，只有情商，尤其是情感处理的流畅“在线”方面，才能预测复杂选择情况下的学习速度，尤其是在缺乏可用于指导决策的线索/信息的情况下。年龄对这些认知、情感和决策机制的影响可能与神经解剖学相关，特别是在构成人类镜像神经元和心智化系统子集的区域中。虽然卓越的决策可能被刻板地与“更聪明的人”（即更高的认知智力）联系在一起，但我们的数据表明，情商在老年人的经济决策中发挥着重要作用。