Recent studies by Otago's Psychology researchers suggest this skill declines with age.
Many adults over the age of 60 have particular difficulty in recognising anger, sadness and fear on the face of others, but not the other basic human emotions of surprise and happiness, and they are even better than young adults at recognising disgust.
They also find it difficult to identify anger and sadness in vocal and bodily expressions.
Associate Professor Ted Ruffman, colleagues Drs Janice Murray, Jamin Halberstadt and Mele Taumoepeau, and PhD students Melissa Ryan and Bee Teng Lim believe the reason for this decline is that the brain changes with age.
Different emotions are processed by different parts of the brain.
A reduction in neuro-transmitters or shrinkage of neurons in certain frontal regions of the brain are thought to be the two most plausible reasons for this decline, Ruffman says. "The frontal area of the brain is known to be the last part to develop and the first to deteriorate."Brain changes are likely to have a number of other implications for social understanding as well.
For instance, older adults are not as good as young adults at differentiating which faces look more dangerous, and they are less able to distinguish when someone has acted inappropriately in a social situation compared to when they have acted appropriately.
And, whereas young adults look most at the eye region of a face, older adults tend to split their attention equally between the mouth and eyes, even when the eyes contain more emotion information than mouths as is the case in expressions of anger, sadness and fear.
"It seems that older adults don't fully recognise how much information is contained in eyes," Ruffman says.
If older adults have difficulty recognising emotions, there are potential implications for their social adjustment because research with young adults indicates that worse emotion recognition is associated with reduced social competence and interest, and reduced quality of life.
However, while cognitive decline may be inevitable as we age, its effects can be reduced by diet and exercise.
FUNDING
University of Otago Research Grant