INTRODUCTION: The scientific literature points to a possible bias in the form perception and emotional memory are constructed when elderly and young individuals are compared. However, this possibility is underexplored. This paper presents the results obtained from a pilot study based on an elderly emotional subjective report after evaluation using the International Affective Picture System images and Self Assessment Manikin scale scores. METHOD: Forty-eight clinically and cognitively capable elderly volunteer subjects from the Third Age Open University evaluated 71 randomly chosen images of the International Affective Picture System in terms of arousal and affective valence. RESULTS: For the elderly, the greater the arousal, the smaller the pleasure resulting in a strong negative correlation (r = 0.93) observed between arousal and negative valence. A comparison with another similar normative experiment performed in young Brazilian and American individuals showed a possible cultural difference in subjective reports of emotional stimuli. CONCLUSIONS: This investigation indicates that there may be a difference between elderly and young individuals when affective reports of arousal are studied. A normalization of the International Affective Picture System for the elderly in a larger sample, representative of the population, might be useful to address this issue.
International Affective Picture System; Self Assessment Manikin; elderly; Brazil
