Differences In The Characteristics Of Audiovisual Integration Of Emotional Information Between Young And Elderly People

Audiovisual integration is the process of integrating visual and auditory information into a unified,coherent and stable perceptual process.It is difficult to the point of impossibility to accurately understand others’ emotional state only through the expression of faces or voices in daily life,but integrating the emotional information of multiple sensory modalities helps to better understand others’ emotions and promote the communication.Current studies on the multisensory integration of emotional information have focused on healthy young people to explore their behavioral characteristics and neural mechanism.However,a large number of studies have found that aging leads to changes in the neural mechanism of the elder,the specificity of emotional recognition and the ability of audiovisual integration of the elder are different from the young.But the neural mechanism of the ability of audiovisual integration of emotional information is still unclear.In order to explore the differences between the young and the elder in the audiovisual integration of emotional information,this study uses 2(subject type: the young,the elder)× 3(sensory modality type: visual,auditory and audiovisual)× 3(emotion type: anger,neutral and happiness)mixed experimented design.Two experiments are conducted to explore whether there are differences in audiovisual integration of emotional information between the young and the elder at the behavioral(Study 1)and neural level(Study 2).Results:(1)At the behavioral level(study 1),Whether young or elderly,when presenting facial expressions and vocal rhythms simultaneously,individuals have a higher accuracy and shorter reaction time compared to presenting only facial or vocal emotional information.Through the analysis of relative amount of multisensory response enhancement,it was found that both young and elderly people experienced audiovisual integration effects when presenting both facial and vocal emotional information simultaneously.In addition,compared to happy information,young people have a lower accuracy and slower reaction time in recognizing angry information,but there is no significant difference in the reaction time of elderly people in recognizing angry and happy information.(2)At the level of neural mechanism(study 2),there are significant differences between young and old people in recognizing emotional information from different sensory channels.The N100 amplitude induced by young people and old people when recognizing different emotional information from different sensory channels is significantly different,and the main effect of sensory channels is significant.The N100 amplitude induced when presenting face and voice emotional information is significantly lower than that of voice emotional information,and the type of emotion× The interaction between the subjects was significant.The amplitude of N100 wave induced by the elderly when recognizing happy information was significantly greater than that of neutral information.The P200 amplitude induced by young and old people when recognizing different emotional information from different sensory channels is significantly different,and the main effect of sensory channel is significant.The P200 amplitude induced by facial and voice emotional information is significantly greater than that of voice emotional information,and the type of sensory channel × The interaction of subjects was significant.When emotional information was presented through audio-visual channels,the P200 amplitude of young people was significantly smaller than that of old people.Emotional type × The interaction of the subjects was significant.When the happy information was presented,the P200 amplitude of the young people was significantly smaller than that of the old people.There is a significant difference in the amplitude of LPC induced by young and old people when recognizing different emotional information from different sensory channels.The main effect of sensory channel is significant.The amplitude of LPC induced by presenting face and voice emotional information is significantly greater than that of voice emotional information.The type of sensory channel × The interaction of the subjects was significant.When emotional information was presented through a single auditory channel,the LPC amplitude of young people was significantly greater than that of old people.In addition,the types of sensory channels of N100 amplitude,P200 amplitude and LPC amplitude induced by young and old people when recognizing emotional information from different sensory channels ×Emotional type × The triple interaction of the tested types was significant.Based on the above researches,this study concluded as follows:(1)Compared with a single channel(visual and auditory),when emotional information is presented through multiple sensory channels,the accuracy rate of young and old people is higher and the reaction time is shorter.(2)According to the principle of counter-effect,the ability of the elderly to recognize single channel information decreases.When they present facial expression and voice tone at the same time,the elderly benefit more than the young.(3)The time and intensity of emotional information multi-sensory integration processing in the elderly are different from those in the young,indicating that aging will change the neural mechanism of emotional information integration processing.According to the theory of social emotional selectivity,the elderly and young people have emotional specificity in the process of emotional recognition,that is,the elderly will recognize positive emotions faster and more accurately.