An Age-Related Dissociation of Short-Term Memory for Facial Identity and Facial Emotional Expression.

Background: Memory for both facial emotional expression and facial identity was explored in younger and older adults in 3 experiments using a delayed match-to-sample procedure.

Method: Memory sets of 1, 2, or 3 faces were presented, which were followed by a probe after a 3-s retention interval.

Results: There was very little difference between younger and older adults in memory for emotional expressions, but memory for identity was substantially impaired in the older adults.

Discussion: Possible explanations for spared memory for emotional expressions include socioemotional selectivity theory as well as the existence of overlapping yet distinct brain networks for processing of different emotions.