The present study brings evidence of a new type of emotional processes, namely sequential modulations of emotional effects, and how these processes change during aging. Sequential modulations of emotional effects refer to the changes in emotional effects (i.e., differences in performance between current negative and positive items) as a function of emotional valence of the immediately preceding items. Young (18–30-year-olds) and older adults (62–89-year-olds) were presented neutral, positive, and negative pictures and had to determine whether each of these pictures included humans or not. Differences in emotional effects were found after negative and neutral items whereas they were absent after positive items in young adults. Moreover, age-related differences in sequential modulations of emotional effects revealed that young and older adults modulated emotional effects to the same extent after negative items, but older adults showed reverse sequential modulations after positive items. These findings have important implications to further our understanding of the sequential modulations of emotion during aging.

本研究提供了一种新型情绪过程的证据，即情绪效应的顺序调节，以及这些过程在衰老过程中如何变化。情绪影响的顺序调节是指情绪影响的变化（即当前消极和积极项目之间的表现差异）作为前一个项目的情绪效价的函数。年轻人（18-30 岁）和老年人（62-89 岁）被呈现为中性、积极和消极的图片，并且必须确定这些图片中的每一个是否包括人类。在消极和中性项目后发现了情绪影响的差异，而在年轻人中发现积极项目后情绪影响不存在。而且，情绪效应顺序调节的年龄相关差异表明，年轻人和老年人在消极项目后对情绪效应的调节程度相同，但老年人在积极项目后表现出反向顺序调节。这些发现对进一步理解衰老过程中情绪的顺序调节具有重要意义。