Washington: Two studies conducted in Washington have found that elder people recollect positive images more frequently as compared to young people. As people get older and become more aware of the limited time left in life, they direct their attention to more positive thoughts, activities and memories.

It was found that with age, people place increasingly more value on emotionally meaningful goals, and thus invest more cognitive and behavioural resources in obtaining them.

Compared with younger adults, the findings said, older adults recalled fewer negative images than positive ones. The memory bias favouring the recall of positive images increased in successively older age groups. The findings appear in the June issue of the 'Journal of Experimental Psychology', published by the American Psychological Association (APA).

Psychologists documented the tendency of older people to regulate their emotions more effectively than younger people by maintaining positive feelings and lowering negative feelings. The researchers conducted two studies to examine age differences in memory for positive, negative and neutral images of people, animals, nature scenes and inanimate objects.

The first study tested 144 participants in age groups 18-29, 41-53 and 65-80. The researchers found that older adults recalled fewer negative images relative to positive and neutral images. Further, recognition memory among the elders decreased for negative pictures. As a result, the younger adults remembered the negative pictures better.

In the second study which had 64 participants divided equally between ages 19-30 and ages 63-86, the researchers ruled out mood as a contributing factor. It was found that mood affected younger and older people alike.

ANI