An emotional Stroop task with faces and words. A comparison of young and older adults

•On the word trials, there is greater interference for positive stimuli.•Negative faces cause more interference than positive faces on word trials.•On the face trials, there is greater interference for positive faces.•Negative words cause more interference than positive on face trials.•Older adults have a higher level of interference than young on face trials.

AntecedentsGiven the contradictions of previous studies on the changes in attentional responses produced in aging a Stroop emotional task was proposed to compare young and older adults to words or faces with an emotional valence.MethodThe words happy or sad were superimposed on faces that express the emotion of happiness or sadness. The emotion expressed by the word and the face could agree or not (cued and uncued trials, respectively). 85 young and 66 healthy older adults had to identify both faces and words separately, and the interference between the two types of stimuli was examined.ResultsAn interference effect was observed for both types of stimuli in both groups. There was more interference on positive faces and words than on negative stimuli.ConclusionsOlder adults had more difficulty than younger in focusing on positive uncued trials, whereas there was no difference across samples on negative uncued trials.