Past empirical studies have suggested that older adults preferentially use gaze-based mood regulation to lessen their negative experiences while watching an emotional scene. This preference for a low cognitively demanding regulatory strategy leaves open the question of whether the effortful processing of a more cognitively demanding reappraisal task is really spared from the general age-related decline. Because it does not allow perceptual attention to be redirected away from the emotional source, music provides an ideal way to address this question. The goal of our study was to examine the affective, behavioral, physiological, and cognitive outcomes of positive and detached reappraisal in response to negative musical emotion in younger and older adults. Participants first simply listened to a series of threatening musical excerpts and were then instructed to either positively reappraise or to detach themselves from the emotion elicited by music. Findings showed that, when instructed to simply listen to threatening music, older adults reported a more positive feeling associated with a smaller SCL in comparison with their younger counterparts. When implementing positive and detached reappraisal, participants showed more positive and more aroused emotional experiences, whatever the age group. We also found that the instruction to intentionally reappraise negative emotions results in a lesser cognitive cost for older adults in comparison with younger adults. Taken together, these data suggest that, compared to younger adults, older adults engage in spontaneous downregulation of negative affect and successfully implement downregulation instructions. This extends previous findings and brings compelling evidence that, even when auditory attention cannot be redirected away from the emotional source, older adults are still more effective at regulating emotions. Taking into account the age-associated decline in executive functioning, our results suggest that the working memory task could have distracted older adults from the reminiscences of the threat-evoking music, thus resulting in an emotional downregulation. Hence, even if they were instructed to implement reappraisal strategies, older adults might prefer distraction over engagement in reappraisal. This is congruent with the idea that, although getting older, people are more likely to be distracted from a negative source of emotion to maintain their well-being.

中文翻译：

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年轻人和老年人对威胁性音乐的积极和独立的重新评估

过去的实证研究表明，老年人在观看情绪场景时更喜欢使用基于凝视的情绪调节来减少他们的负面体验。这种对低认知要求的监管策略的偏好留下了一个问题，即是否真正避免了与年龄相关的普遍衰退，对认知要求更高的重新评估任务的努力处理。因为它不允许将感知注意力从情感来源转移开，所以音乐提供了解决这个问题的理想方式。我们研究的目的是检查积极和超然的重新评价对年轻人和老年人的消极音乐情绪的情感、行为、生理和认知结果。参与者首先简单地听了一系列具有威胁性的音乐片段，然后被指示要么积极地重新评估，要么让自己远离音乐引起的情绪。结果表明，当被指示只听具有威胁性的音乐时，与年轻的同龄人相比，老年人报告的与较小的 SCL 相关的更积极的感觉。在实施积极和超然的重新评估时，无论年龄组如何，参与者都表现出更积极、更激动的情绪体验。我们还发现，与年轻人相比，有意重新评估负面情绪的指令导致老年人的认知成本更低。综合起来，这些数据表明，与年轻人相比，老年人进行负面情绪的自发下调并成功执行下调指令。这扩展了之前的发现，并提供了令人信服的证据，即即使听觉注意力无法从情绪源转移，老年人在调节情绪方面仍然更有效。考虑到与年龄相关的执行功能下降，我们的结果表明，工作记忆任务可能会分散老年人对唤起威胁的音乐的回忆，从而导致情绪下调。因此，即使他们被指示实施重新评估策略，老年人可能更喜欢分心而不是参与重新评估。这与这样的想法是一致的，尽管年龄越来越大，