Age-related changes in processing positive and negative feedback: Is there a positivity effect for older adults?

• FRN reflects a fast initial monitoring for detection of expectancy violations.
• No positivity bias for older adults was found in this initial monitoring process.
• A later evaluation process, indexed by the P300, reflects memory updating.
• Here, older adults were impaired after negative feedback, selectively.

Older people sometimes show a bias toward the processing of positive information. In this study, we used an event-related potential approach to examine whether such a positivity bias is also present during feedback processing in older adults. Our results suggest that a fast initial monitoring process, as reflected in the feedback-related negativity (FRN), is sensitive to the expectancy of events irrespective of their valence for older (aged 70–77 years) as well as younger (aged 20–27 years) adults. In contrast, in a later evaluation process, associated with memory updating and indexed by the P300, both age groups preferably processed unexpected positive feedback. However, younger adults additionally differentiated between unexpected negative and expected feedback while older adults did not, probably due to a lower working memory capacity.