Who Will Be More Egocentric? Age Differences in the Impact of Retrospective Self-Experience on Interpersonal Emotion Intensity Judgment.

This study investigates whether the retrospective self-experience of older adults affects and biases interpersonal emotion judgment more than that of younger adults by adopting the paradigm of the self-generated anchoring effect. Participants (older adults: n = 63; younger adults: n = 65) were required to retrospectively consider their self-experiences and judge their possible emotion intensity in anchor-generating scenarios (high- or low-anchor scenarios). Subsequently, participants estimated the protagonist's emotion intensity in target scenarios. The age-related interaction effect showed that older adults exhibited a significant self-generated anchoring effect in more emotion categories (four emotions) compared with younger adults (two emotions). After controlling for inhibition or working memory as a covariant, this interaction effect was no longer significant. The results from multilevel regression analysis also indicated the significant effect of self-emotion across all models on participants' judgment of others' emotions. The results indicated that older adults were more affected by retrospective self-experiences, leading to more egocentric judgment, than younger adults. This different influence from the retrospective self-experiences might partially have been caused by the age-related difference in cognitive abilities.

Age similarities in the anchoring effect in emotion intensity judgment.

BACKGROUND: The anchoring effect refers to the tendency that an individual's numerical judgment would assimilate to an anchor (a numerical value) that appears before that judgment. This study investigated whether the anchoring effect exists in the emotion judgment of younger and older adults and observed the age-related characteristics. This could not only broaden the explanation of the anchoring effect but also link this classic judgment bias with daily emotion judgment to refresh our understanding of older adults' ability in emotional perspective taking. METHOD: Participants (older adults: n = 64, age range: 60-74, 27 males; younger adults: n = 68, age range: 18-34, 34 males) read a brief emotional story and compared the protagonist's emotion intensity to a given numerical anchor (lower or higher than the anchor) and then estimated the protagonist's possible emotion intensity in that story. The task was divided into two cases according to anchor relevance (anchors are relevant or irrelevant relative to the judgment target). RESULTS: The results showed that the estimates were higher under high-anchor than low-anchor conditions, suggesting the robust anchoring effect. Further, the anchoring effect was greater for anchor-relevant than anchor-irrelevant tasks and for negative rather than positive emotions. No age differences were found. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: The results indicated that the anchoring effect is robust and stable for younger and older adults, even though the anchor information seemed irrelevant. Finally, perceiving others' negative emotions is a crucial but rather difficult aspect of empathy, which could be a challenge and requires more caution for accurate interpretation.

The Relationship Between Cognitive Abilities and the Decision-Making Process: The Moderating Role of Self-Relevance.

This study investigated the relationship between cognitive abilities and age differences in information search and the moderating role of task self-relevance by measuring the decision-making processes of participants in both high and low self-relevance decision-making tasks. The sample included 57 young and 65 older adults. They viewed five-alternative × five-attribute decision matrices that required them to open, with a mouse click, the information cells that interested them. Processing speed, verbal fluency, working memory, and vocabulary were measured as cognitive abilities. The dependent variables were search engagement (including time-related engagement and frequency-related engagement) and search pattern (calculated based on alternative-based or attribute-based search). The results from structured equation modeling showed that age negatively predicted these cognitive abilities (processing speed, verbal fluency, working memory, and vocabulary) and positively predicted information search engagement. Processing speed mediated the effect of age on study time per cell under tasks with both high and low self-relevance. Verbal fluency, meanwhile, mediated the total search time and checking time per cell when the task was highly self-related but not when the task had low self-relevance. These results suggest that self-relevance can moderate the mediation effect of verbal fluency on the relationship between age and information search time; this means that older adults whose verbal fluency was limited require relatively more time to search information to make an informed decision. However, this effect is only sufficient when the decision-making task is highly self-related and provokes more engagement motivation toward it.

Fabrication of Cobalt Sulfide/Graphene Sheets Nanocomposite Harvesting Improved Anode Performance for Lithium-Ion Battery.

A cobalt sulfide (CoS)/graphene sheets (GS) nanocomposite was successfully synthesized through a simple one-pot hydrothermal route assisted by ethylenediamine. The crystalline phase, structure and morphology of this nanocomposite were systematically characterized via X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), nitrogen (N2) absorption-desorption isotherm, Raman spectroscopy and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The results revealed that the CoS nanoparticles with size distribution of 30-100 nm were highly dispersed on or well anchored in the creasy GS substrate. Integrating nanosized CoS compound and GS outstanding merits, the as-obtained CoS/GS nanocomposite as an anode material for lithiumion battery exhibited high reversible capacity, excellent long-cycle stability and remarkable high-rate capability, which were all superior to those of pristine CoS. Moreover, this nanocomposite maintained a high capacity of ˜600 mAh·g-1 after 200 cycles at a current density of 100 mA·g-1. The approach presented in this work is readily applicable to nanoparticle decoration of graphene sheets and preparation of other graphene-based nanocomposites as anode materials for lithium-ion batteries.