| Summary: | 本研究探討高齡者在視覺搜尋作業中，其由上而下（Top-down）與由下而上（Bottom-up）的注意力運作對於情緒刺激的反應，是否會因為注意力功能退化而與年輕成人的表現不同。過去研究指出，雖然高齡者注意力功能衰退，但是高齡者的由上而下注意力運作，仍可以幫助高齡者的表現。為了解由上而下注意力運作是否對於高齡者的反應有所幫助，本研究以兩個實驗分別探討內因與外因線索以及操弄訊息量所造成的影響。
實驗一包括80％有效的內因線索與25％有效的外因線索兩階段，外因線索階段為由下而上注意力運作，內因線索階段則為由上而下注意力運作，獨變項為年齡（高齡者、年輕成人）、情緒（生氣、快樂）以及線索有效情況（有效線索、中性線索、無效線索），記錄反應時間與正確率。實驗二的兩階段使用不同訊息量的外因線索（80％有效比例為高訊息量、25％有效比例為低訊息量），其餘操弄都與實驗一相同，低訊息量為單純的由下而上注意力運作，而高訊息量兼具由下而上與由上而下注意力運作。
研究結果發現，兩實驗高齡者與年輕成人都對於生氣情緒反應較快，符合威脅優勢。高齡者較年輕人更需要借助由上而下的注意力運作幫助反應，高訊息量的線索對於高齡者幫助也較年輕成人大。另外，實驗一增益效果的結果顯示，有效線索在高齡者搜尋生氣臉孔幫助較大，在年輕成人則搜尋快樂臉孔幫助較大，但是實驗二結果則顯示，有效線索在高齡者與年輕成人搜尋快樂臉孔的幫助都較生氣臉孔大，兩實驗的年齡與情緒的交互作用結果不同可能與高齡者異質性有關。由研究結果可知，由上而下注意力運作對於高齡者在情緒臉孔反應有幫助，在未來實務上，可以多運用由上而下注意力運作的線索幫助高齡者反應。 === This research is aim to understand attention in visual search of emotional faces in aging. Two types of attention process, that is top-down and bottom-up attention, were concerned in this study. In past researches, there are empirical evidences showing age-related declination in attention function, especially in bottom-up attention. But top-down attention is still playing an important role in doing task for the older adults. In order to understand the effect of top-down attention in aging, two experiments using endogenous or exogenous spatial cues were designed. Participants have to respond whether there is a different emotional face or not in a visual search task. The independent variables are age（aging and young）, emotional face（happy and angry）, and cue（valid, neutral, and invalid）. Dependent variables are reaction times and accuracy. In Experiment 1, there are two stages: 80％ valid endogenous cues and 25％ valid exogenous cues. The endogenous cues stage and exogenous cues stage were designed to probe top-down attention and bottom-up attention, respectively. In Experiment 2, there are two stages: 80％ valid exogenous cues（highly informative cues）and 25％ valid exogenous cues（non-informative cues）. Using highly informative exogenous cues involve both top-down and bottom-up attention. In contrast, non-informative exogenous cues only trigger bottom-up attention. The major results of this study support threat advantage hypothesis that both older and young adults respond to angry face target quicker than happy face. Benefit from top-down attention was larger in older adults than young adults. Highly informative cues help older adults more in searching emotional faces than young adults. The cuing effects in two emotional face conditions were different between Experiment 1 and 2. This inconsistent result maybe relates to aging heterogeneity. In conclusion, top-down attention can help older adults search for emotional faces.
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