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OPEN
Received: 14 June 2017
Accepted: 11 August 2017
Published: xx xx xxxx
The Aging of the Social Mind Differential Effects on Components
of Social Understanding
Andrea M. F. Reiter1,2, Philipp Kanske
3,4
, Ben Eppinger1,5,6 & Shu-Chen Li1
Research in younger adults dissociates cognitive from affective facets of social information
processing, rather than promoting a monolithic view of social intelligence. An influential theory
on adult development suggests differential effects of aging on cognitive and affective functions.
However, this dissociation has not been directly tested in the social domain. Employing a newly
developed naturalistic paradigm that disentangles facets of the social mind within an individual,
we show multi-directionality of age-related differences. Specifically, components of the sociocognitive route – Theory of Mind and metacognition – are impaired in older relative to younger
adults. Nevertheless, these social capacities are still less affected by aging than factual reasoning
and metacognition regarding non-social content. Importantly, the socio-affective route is wellfunctioning, with no decline in empathy and elevated compassion in the elderly. These findings
contribute to an integrated theory of age-related change in social functioning and inform
interventions tailored to specifically reinstate socio-cognitive skills in old age.
Understanding others is important for successful aging. It has been linked to life satisfaction, wisdom, and lower
degrees of loneliness in old age1, 2. However, earlier research focused mainly on childhood development and
dysfunction of the social mind3. Recent studies in younger adults emphasize the importance of understanding
subfacets of social understanding4. Specifically, social neuroscience research dissociates cognitive from affective
routes of social understanding5: the socio-cognitive route entails mentalizing and metacognition, whereas the
socio-affective route encompasses empathy, i.e., the sharing of others’ feelings, and compassion, i.e., a feeling of
concern towards others. These routes work independently from each other5 and show differential patterns in
psychopathology6.
In aging research, the socio-emotional selectivity theory7 similarly suggests divergent effects of aging on cognitive and emotional functions: whereas cognitive abilities decline, affective functions are considered to stay
intact or even increase with old age. However, this pluralistic notion of aging has not been investigated with
respect to social understanding. Existing adult developmental studies have examined either socio-cognitive or
socio-affective aspects by using tests of Theory of Mind (ToM) or empathy, respectively, which precludes direct
comparisons. Consequently, accumulated findings to date are rather equivocal: both the cognitive and affective
routes have been shown to be impaired, stable or even enhanced during aging2, 8–11. Moreover, social metacognition12 as an important facet of social information processing has yet to be studied from an adult developmental
perspective.
To close these gaps, this study investigates the effects of aging on component processes of social understanding in a community sample of 55 healthy younger adults and 52 healthy older adults. Specifically, we use a newly
developed, naturalistic paradigm, the EmpaToM task13. This allows for assessing multiple facets of social understanding (i.e., ToM, social metacognition, empathy, and compassion) within an individual with the same task;
thus, making it possible to ascertain potential differential age effects. Extending the socio-emotional selectivity
1
Lifespan Developmental Neuroscience, Department of Psychology, Technische Universität Dresden, 01062,
Dresden, Germany. 2Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences,
04103, Leipzig, Germany. 3Department of Social Neuroscience, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain
Sciences, 04103, Leipzig, Germany. 4Institute of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Department of Psychology,
Technische Universität Dresden, 01062, Dresden, Germany. 5Department of Psychology, Concordia University,
Montreal, Canada. 6PERFORM, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. Correspondence and requests for materials
should be addressed to A.M.F.R. (email: andrea.reiter@tu-dresden.de)
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Figure 1. Age differences regarding Theory of Mind. Analysis of accuracy (panel A) and reaction times on
correctly answered trials (panel B) consistently revealed a significant interaction of age group and question
type (ToM vs. factual reasoning question). Whereas in younger adults no difference between the two question
types was apparent, older adults answered ToM questions correctly significantly more often (panel A) and faster
(panel B) than factual reasoning questions. Error bars represent 95% confidence interval. Within-subject error
bars are adjusted by removing inter-subject variability.
theory, we predict age-related decline in socio-cognitive functions, whereas we expect facets of socio-affective
functions to be intact or even improved in old age.
Results
Results were derived from analyses of ToM, empathy, compassion and metacognition assessed in a video-based
paradigm13. In each trial, participants viewed either a neutral or an emotionally negative video clip and answered
multiple-choice questions about the content of the presented video, either requiring ToM inference or factual reasoning. Participants were also asked to indicate confidence in their answers, to rate how they felt after viewing the
video (empathy) and how much compassion they felt towards the protagonist (see methods for further details).
These four questions per video allowed us to independently measure ToM (vs. non-social, factual reasoning),
metacognition, empathy and compassion in each participant.
Differential Age Effects in ToM and Factual Reasoning. We first analyzed accuracy in the
multiple-choice questions which required either ToM inference or factual reasoning. To this end, we used
a repeated measures ANOVA with the between-subject factor age group and the within-subject factor question type (ToM vs. factual reasoning/Non-ToM). This analysis revealed a significant main effect of age group
(F(1,105) = 126.03 p < 0.001, ηpartial2 = 0.55), with the elderly answering less accurately (t(105) = 11.23, p < 0.001),
and a significant effect of question type (F(1,105) = 37.84, p < 0.001, ηpartial2 = 0.27; Fig. 1a), with a higher accuracy for ToM questions (t(105) = 5.09, p < 0.001).
These main effects were qualified by a significant age group x question type interaction (F(1,105) = 41.21,
p < 0.001, ηpartial2 = 0.28, Fig. 1a). Post-hoc t-tests revealed that younger adults performed similarly on the factual
reasoning and ToM questions (t(54) = 0.19, p > 0.85). In contrast, older adults were significantly more accurate
when they had to infer the protagonists’ mental state as compared to factual reasoning (t(51) = 8.80, p < 0.001).
Reaction times (RTs) for correct responses were analyzed using the same ANOVA model. No main effects of
age group or question type were found (Fs < 2.72, ps > 0.10). Crucially, however, we found a significant age group
x question type interaction (F(1,105) = 4.58, p = 0.04, ηpartial2 = 0.04, Fig. 1b). Whereas the RTs of younger adults
did not differ as a function of question type (ToM vs. factual reasoning, (t(54) = 0.39, p > 0.25)), older adults
responded significantly faster to questions requiring ToM inference than to those requiring factual reasoning
(t(51) = 2.61, p = 0.02). Taken together, these results underscore an advantage of social as compared to factual
cognition in the elderly.
Age Differences in Social vs. Non-social Metacognition.
In each trial, after having answered the
multiple-choice question, participants were asked to indicate how confident they were that their given answer was
correct. In the next analysis step, we examined age differences in these subjective confidence ratings (while adjusting for individual differences in accuracy as covariates). Overall confidence ratings did not differ significantly
between age groups (F(1,104) = 0.83, p > 0.25, ηpartial2 = 0.008). When separating correctly answered trials from
incorrectly answered trials, we found a difference in the confidence ratings as a function of response accuracy
(F(1,105) = 121.47, p < 0.001, ηpartial2 = 0.54, Fig. 2a). As Fig. 2a shows, on average the confidence ratings of both
groups were significantly lower in incorrect than in correct trials. Interestingly, we also observed a significant age
group x response accuracy interaction in the confidence ratings (F = 33.04, p < 0.001, ηpartial2 = 0.24). As displayed
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Figure 2. Age Differences regarding Confidence and Metacognitive Ability. Panel A: Confidence ratings
for correctly and incorrectly answered questions. Both groups rate their confidence relatively high, also in
erroneous trials (mean > 3 on a 1–6 scale). Confidence ratings of older adults are less sensitive to actual
response accuracy than those of younger adults. Panel B: A significant interaction effect of age group and
question type on metacognitive monitoring ability (indicated by the area under the curve of the receiver
operating characteristic) was revealed. In the elderly, social metacognition, the ability to appropriately evaluate
one’s own capacity of mentalizing, was less impaired than metacognition regarding factual reasoning capacities.
Error bars represent 95% confidence interval. Within-subject error bars are adjusted by removing inter-subject
variability.
in Fig. 2a, older adults make relatively more high-confidence errors than younger adults, a pattern that is reminiscent of findings from the research on episodic memory aging14. Relatedly, when comparing age differences in
measures of metacognition (while adjusting for individual differences in mean accuracy), we found significantly
lower metacognitive capacities in the elderly as compared to younger adults (F = 4.84, p = 0.03, ηpartial2 = 0.05,
Fig. 2b).
In a next analysis step, we were particularly interested in the effects of emotionality and question type on
metacognitive capacities in both age groups. Therefore, we tested for effects of question type (ToM vs. factual reasoning) and emotionality, while including mean accuracy values per condition as covariates. The main effects of
question type and emotionality as well as their interaction were not significant (Fs < 0.17, ps > 0.25). Interestingly,
however, we found a significant interaction of question type with age group (F(1,89) = 4.14, p = 0.045, ηpartial2 = 0.04,
Fig. 2b). Post-hoc univariate ANOVAs showed that older and younger adults only differed significantly regarding factual metacognition (F(1, 101) = 8.1, p = 0.005, ηpartial2 = 0.07), but not with respect to social metacognition (F(1,101) = 0.04, p = 0.844, ηpartial2 < 0.001). To summarize, older adults’ confidence ratings discriminate
less between correct and incorrect responses than those of younger adults, reflecting age-related impairment in
metacognitive monitoring. Importantly, however, this deficit is specific only to non-social, factual contents. The ability to evaluate one’s own capacity of ToM is not significantly impaired in the elderly compared to the young adults.
No Age Differences in Empathy and Positive Age Differences in Compassion. After viewing each
video clip, participants rated their own mood. The mood ratings allowed us to assess participants’ empathic
responding (i.e., how much their own mood was influenced by the video clip) after videos with an emotionally
negative vs. a neutral content. Age differences in these valence ratings were analyzed using a repeated measures ANOVA with age group as the between-subject factor and emotionality (emotionally negative vs. neutral
videos) of the video as the within-subject factor. Age differences regarding empathy would emerge as an interaction effect between age group and emotionality. The analysis showed a significant effect of emotionality of
the video (F(1,105) = 361.87, p < 0.001, ηpartial2 = 0.78), suggesting that emotionally negative videos elicited more
empathic responding, that is, more negative affect, in our participants than neutral videos (see Fig. 3a). However,
we observed no significant main effect of age group (F(1,105) = 2.45, p = 0.12, ηpartial2 = 0.02) and no significant
age group x emotionality interaction (F(1,105) = 0.008, p = 0.93, ηpartial2 < 0.001). Thus, emotionally negative videos triggered empathic responding in both age groups to a similar extent. Participants were also asked to indicate
their compassion towards the video’s protagonist in each trial. Regarding these compassion ratings, an independent t-test showed significant age differences (t(82.74) = 5.20, p < 0.001, Cohen’s d = 0.99); older adults indicated
higher ratings of compassion than younger adults (Fig. 3b).
Independence of Cognitive and Affective Routes of Social Understanding. A recent study using
the EmpaToM has found no significant correlations between empathy and ToM measures in a population of
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Figure 3. Age differences regarding the affective route of social understanding (Empathy and Compassion).
Panel A: empathy ratings showed that in both age groups, emotionally negative videos elicited more negative
affect as compared to baseline (i.e., valence ratings after neutral videos). This effect was not significantly
moderated by age group, thus no evidence for age group differences regarding empathic responding was
observed. Panel B: Older adults show significantly higher compassion than younger adults. Error bars represent
95% confidence interval. Within-subject error bars are adjusted by removing inter-subject variability.
younger and middle-aged adults5. We were interested in whether the inter-correlation of cognitive and affective
social skills may differ as a function of age, as previous studies of cognitive aging found dedifferentiation (higher
inter-correlations) between subcomponents of fluid intelligence in older age groups15. Thus, for both groups
separately, we correlated the ToM measure with the empathy measure. In line with previous findings, neither
in younger nor in older adults did we find a significant association between measures of socio-cognitive and
socio-affective skills (rs < 0.06, ps > 0.64). Thus, in contrast to cognitive abilities, the sub-facets of the social mind
do not exhibit dedifferentiation in old age.
Differential Effects of Cognition on Age Differences in Socio-cognitive and Socio-affective Abilities.
In order to test for potential effects of cognitive abilities on the observed age differences, we repeated the analysis
on ToM accuracy, (social) metacognition, empathy, and compassion by statistically adjusting for a unit-weighted
composite score of cognitive abilities reflecting fluid intelligence (based on z-scores of working memory, attention, cognitive speed) and the accuracy of the Spot-a-Word Test (as a proxy of verbal intelligence). Adding these
covariates in the analyses did not alter the age effects we found on ToM and compassion (ToM: all ps < 0.001, all
Fs > 13.07, all ηpartial2 > 0.11, compassion: all ps < 0.01, all Fs > 9.00, all ηpartial2 > 0.08), nor did they alter the absent
interaction effect regarding empathy (all ps > 0.12, all Fs < 2.36, all ηpartial2 < 0.02). However, age differences on
metacognitive capacities were less pronounced and became non-significant after including the composite score
of fluid cognitive abilities as a covariate (F(1,101) = 2.91, p = 0.09, ηpartial2 = 0.03). Moreover, the interaction
effect of question type on metacognition was non-significant when including the composite measure of fluid
cognitive abilities - where older adults scored lower - as a covariate (F(1,87) = 3.26, p = 0.08, ηpartial2 = 0.04). The
same interaction effect was not significant when adjusting for verbal ability, where older adults scored higher
(F(1,100) = 3.52, p = 0.06, ηpartial2 = 0.03). These results suggest that whereas general cognitive abilities do not
influence age differences regarding ToM, empathy, and compassion, they at least partially account for age effects
on metacognition with respect to factual reasoning and social understanding.
Discussion
Using a new naturalistic, well-validated paradigm, we directly tested the hypothesis that distinct components of
social understanding age differentially. Our findings confirm this hypothesis, rather than supporting a uniform
pattern of the aging of the social mind.
Advantage of Socio-affective over Socio-cognitive Functions in Old Age.
Here, we assessed both
socio-affective and socio-cognitive processes within an individual allowing us to disentangle differential age
effects on independent social skills. Altogether, our results clearly speak in favor of an advantage of socio-affective
over socio-cognitive functions in old age. First, we show that ToM is significantly less impaired by aging than factual reasoning. Second, given its important role for social interactions12, we extend previous research on metacognition focusing on memory functions14 to the social domain. Paralleling the results of our ToM analysis, we
present evidence that aging is associated with deficits in metacognitive abilities specifically for factual reasoning
problems, which do not generalize to social metacognition. Third, by showing intact empathic responding and
enhanced compassion in the elderly, we demonstrate preserved or even elevated socio-affective functioning in
old age. These findings are in line with the socio-emotional selectivity theory7, which suggests that older adults
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become increasingly selective in focusing more resources on socio-emotional content, rather than on self- and
future-oriented goals. The dissociation between cognitive and affective development in old age has been linked
to findings on aging-related structural brain changes: Regions critical for affective processing, the ventral medial
prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and the rostral part of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), maintain their structural
integrity (e.g., cortical thickness) during healthy aging. Contrarily, the more dorsal parts of the ACC and PFC,
associated with cognitive executive functions, show more pronounced aging-related decline16. Interestingly, one
recent investigation using fMRI has suggested that older adults recruit different cortical networks to process
empathy than younger adults11. Our findings might suggest to investigate the effects of aging on the neural correlates of socio-affective vs. socio-cognitive functions in future studies.
In light of previous findings, we speculate how the differential age-related changes found in this study may
relate to age differences in social decision-making. In fact, a recent fMRI study in young adults has suggested
independent contributions of socio-cognitive as well as socio-affective functions to pro-social decision behavior17. Age-comparative studies on social decision-making have yielded rather mixed results18. In some studies
using the dictator game, older adults have been reported to exhibit more pro-social behavior19, and empathic
concern has also been suggested to mediate age-related differences in altruistic choice9. In future studies, it would
be interesting to address more specifically how age-differences in socio-affective vs. socio-cognitive functions
contribute to age differences in social learning and decision-making.
Methodological Considerations. Previous studies on adult socio-emotional aging yielded mixed results.
Most studies lacked carefully designed control conditions8 and applied self-report questionnaires, non-naturalistic
stimuli, or age-irrelevant scenarios. While the use of naturalistic settings has been deemed important when studying social skills in general20, this might even apply more strongly to age-comparative designs: Previous studies
have found that the elderly are impaired in decoding emotions from static, isolated inputs21. Here, based on
well-validated, standardized naturalistic and dynamic stimuli as well as parallel control conditions, we could
not detect any age-related deficits regarding socio-affective skills. This is in line with other studies using more
naturalistic scenarios, demonstrating that context matters when older adults deal with emotional situations10, 22.
It is to be noted that the paradigm employed in this study did not include stimuli of positive emotional
valence, i.e., was not designed to assess positive empathy23. Positive empathy, i.e. the capacity to share the positive
emotions of others, has in fact been argued to be related to key aspects of successful aging, such as improved personal wellbeing and maintained social relationships23. Socio-emotional selectivity theory suggests a bias in older
adults towards positive stimuli in the memory and attention domain24. It would thus be a highly interesting next
step to extend our findings on negative empathy towards social understanding of positive emotions
Due to the cross-sectional nature of the study, it remains open whether the age-related differences we observed
regarding ToM and compassion are truly age- or rather cohort-related.
Conclusion and Outlook.
Extending socio-emotional selectivity towards the domain of social understanding, our findings contribute to an integrated theory of age-related change in social functioning: We show
that socio-cognitive skills are impaired in older adults whereas socio-affective capacities are well-functioning.
This allows future work to build on these findings by studying the relationship of both socio-affective and
socio-cognitive capacities with physical, mental and social well-being in older age. In younger adults, the
EmpaToM has already been successfully applied in a training study25, which opens a promising avenue for studying plasticity of distinct components of social understanding in a longitudinal fashion. The malleability of social
skills has been investigated in psychopathology26 and in healthy younger to middle-aged adults25 but not in older
adults. Our findings inform the design of such training programs for older adults regarding specificity: they suggest prioritizing socio-cognitive over socio-affective training in older adults. An intriguing question is whether
the impairment in ToM, as found here for older adults, can be improved via specific training programs. A further
interesting possibility is that cognitive information processing – be it in the social or the non-social domain – may
be facilitated in healthy older adults by encouraging them to use their relatively intact socio-affective abilities.
Methods
Participants.
Younger adults (YA, range = 18–30 years; n = 57) and older adults (OA; range = 65–80 years,
n = 65) participated in the study. Participants were recruited via the database of the Lifespan Developmental
Neuroscience Lab at TU Dresden. Only participants fluent in German were invited. A total of 15 participants
were excluded from the final data analysis due to the following a priori exclusion criteria: dementia screening
based on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MOCA27 with a score below 25 points (n = 6 OA)), self-report of
a current psychiatric condition or of being in psychotherapeutic or psychopharmacological treatment (n = 2 YA,
n = 2 OA), any present or past neurological conditions (n = 3 OA, stroke or Morbus Parkinson), below chance
level (<0.33) performance (n = 2 OA). Altogether, the final effective sample included 55 younger adults (mean
age = 24.29 years, SD = 3.09 years, 31 female) and 52 older adults (mean age = 72.08 years, SD = 3.76 years, 30
female). We aimed for an effective sample size of around 55 participants per age group based on meta-analytic
reviews on affective processing21 and ToM8. These meta-analyses suggested overall medium effect sizes of aging
on socio-affective and socio-cognitive processes. Power analyses, based on such expected medium effect sizes
(f = 0.25), a two-tailed α = 0.05, and a minimum power of 1−β = 0.80, verified that the final sample size was
appropriate to detect between group effects (minimum total sample size: n = 98), within-subject effects as well as
the interaction of both (minimum total sample size: n = 34).
Participants were compensated with 8.50 Euro/hour for participation. Ethical approval in accordance with
the Helsinki declaration was granted by the TU Dresden ethics committee. All participants provided written
informed consent prior to participation.
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Figure 4. Exemplary Trial Sequence of the EmpaToM Task. In each trial, the participant is presented with an
emotionally negative vs. neutral video sequence of a male or a female person speaking about autobiographical
experiences (factor emotionality). This video requires either ToM inference or factual reasoning (factor question
type). After having seen the video, participants rate their own affect and compassion towards the protagonist
in the video. Valence ratings after emotionally negative vs. neutral videos are used as a measure of empathy,
that is, how much the participant shares the negative feelings expressed by the video’s protagonist. Lastly, the
participants answer content-based multiple-choice questions requiring ToM inference or factual reasoning and
rate their own confidence in their answers, allowing us to assess metacognitive monitoring ability regarding
own social (i.e., mentalizing) vs. non-social (factual reasoning) performance. Note that the exemplary images
depicted in this figure are not based on the original video stimuli used in the EmpaToM task but, for illustration
purposes, have been replaced with re-staged images due to license restrictions.
Assessing sub-components of social understanding in one paradigm. We used the EmpaToM
task13, a newly developed paradigm to measure ToM, social metacognition, empathy, and compassion, which had
been previously validated in young to middle-aged adults. In this naturalistic but well-controlled task (see Fig. 4),
participants were presented with a ~15-second video clip in each trial during which a male or a female speaks
about an autobiographical experience. The described scenario was either neutral (e.g., selling items on eBay) or
negatively emotional (e.g., one’s own sister suffering from bowel cancer) in content. After viewing the video, participants indicated on a continuous valence scale (from negative to positive) how they felt, allowing us to assess
empathic responding. Subsequently, they also rated on a continuous scale (from none to very much) how much
compassion they felt for the person they had just seen in the video. Lastly, inference on video content was tested
in a multiple-choice question with three possible response options, only one of which was correct. Crucially,
this question could either require ToM inference (i.e., asking “The person thinks that…”) or factual reasoning
(i.e., asking “It is correct that…”). After having responded to the inference question, participants were asked to
indicate how confident they felt about the accuracy of their answers. This latter question enables assessment of
metacognitive abilities in the social and non-social domain as well as confidence in one’s own accuracy. A total of
48 videos were presented, rendering 12 videos per condition (valence by question type). The task was instructed
and carried out in exactly the same manner as validated in a prior large-scale study13, but with an extended maximum response time windows (7 s for the ratings and 25 s for the inference questions about video content) to
accommodate findings from a pilot study indicating that older adults needed more time to answer the questions
than provided in the original version (see Fig. 4 for more details; for exemplary video stories and questions see
supplement of ref. 13).
Cognitive and trait measures. Participants completed a standardized battery of cognitive tests (cf. refs 15
and 28 for similiar batteries of cognitive tests), assessing attention (Trail Making Test A, TMT A), cognitive speed
(Identical Pictures Test and Digit Symbol Substitution Test(DSST)), complex attention/executive functioning
(Trail Making Test B, TMT B), working memory (Digit Span forward and backward), and verbal ability (Spot a
Word test). See Table 1 for a summary of these measures for both groups. In sum, OA scored significantly lower
in most measures of cognitive mechanics but higher on the verbal abilities than YA. Altogether, our sample seems
to be largely comparable to other population-based lifespan samples15.
Participants also filled out the German version of the PANAS negative and positive mood trait questionnaire29,
compare Table 1. OA scored lower on negative trait affect than YA, whereas there was no age difference regarding
positive affect (Table 1), which is in line with socio-emotional selectivity theory7.
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Older Adults
Young Adults
Test statistic
Cognitive Measurements*
Working Memory (Forward Digit Span)
9.04 ± 1.79
9.49 ± 1.68
t = 1.35, p = 0.18
Working Memory (Backward Digit Span)
6.15 ± 1.66
7.47 ± 2.04
t = 3.68, p < 0.001
Cognitive Speed (Identical Pictures Test)
11.51 ± 12.22
17.27 ± 14.11
t = 2.25, p = 0.03
Cognitive speed (DSST)
60.67 ± 13.35
85.53 ± 6.07
t = 4.81, p < 0.001
Complex attention (TMT B, time in sec)
88.94 ± 36.29
50.54 ± 15.48
t = 9.07, p < 0.001
Attention (TMT A, time in sec)
39.54 ± 14.31
22.88 ± 6.40
t = 7.76, p < 0.001
Verbal/crystallized IQ (Spot a word test)
40.18 ± 9.91
21.00 ± 11.15
t = 9.37, p < 0.001
Trait Affect*
PANAS positive mood
34.25 ± 5.23
34.70 ± 6.12
t = 0.69, p > 0.25
PANAS negative mood
15.96 ± 4.20
19.72 ± 6.12
t = 3.69, p < 0.001
Table 1. Cognitive and trait affect measures in younger and older adults. *Only participants included in the
reported final analysis of the data.
Data analysis.
We derived measures for ToM, metacognition, empathy, and compassion in the same manner as has been validated in previous large-scale studies5, 13. All analyses were performed using MATLAB and
Statistics Toolbox, R2016a (MathWorks, Inc., Natick, Massachusetts, United States), R (R core team, 2016)30 and
IBM SPSS statistics (IBM Corp, Armonk, NY, United States).
Age differences in the capacity of ToM were analyzed using a repeated measures ANOVA on error rates and
RTs, with question type as a within-subject factor and age group as a between-subject factor. Metacognitive ability was determined by computing the area under the curve (AUC) of the receiver operating characteristic curve
(ROC) for each participant in each condition. This was done by using the participants’ trial-by-trial accuracy as
the predicted state variable as well as their confidence ratings as predictors to the MATLAB function perfcurve.
The function derives true positive and false positive rates describing a non-parametric, trapezoidal approximation
to determine the AUC. Higher ROC-AUC scores indicate higher levels of metacognitive ability. Social metacognition was defined as metacognitive ability in ToM as compared to factual reasoning trials. Confidence ratings and
metacognitive ability scores were adjusted for individual differences in accuracy in all analyses.
Age differences regarding empathy (valence ratings) were analyzed using a repeated measures ANOVA with
emotionality (negative vs. neutral videos) as a within-subject factor and age group as a between-subject factor. Empathic responding was operationalized as the difference in valence ratings after neutral (i.e., participant’s
baseline affect) and emotionally negative videos. Thus, group differences regarding empathy would emerge as an
interaction effect between age group and emotionality. Age differences regarding compassion were analyzed using
an independent t-test on the compassion ratings.
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Acknowledgements
We thank A. Berthold, A. Calder, and J. Lippert for their assistance with data acquisition, and all participants
for study participation. We thank members of the ReSource Project (particularly T. Singer, A. Böckler & F.-M.
Trautwein) for making the task available. This work was supported by a grant from the German Ministry of
Education and Research (BMBF EMOTISK 16SV7243) awarded to SCL & BE and by a grant from the German
Research Foundation (DFG) awarded to BE (SFB 940/2 B7). We acknowledge support by the Open Access
Publication Funds of the TU Dresden.
Author Contributions
A.M.F.R., B.E., and S.C.L. developed the study concept, P.K. developed the task, and all authors contributed
to the study design. A.M.F.R. collected and analyzed the data. A.M.F.R., P.K., and S.C.L. interpreted the data,
A.M.F.R. drafted the manuscript, and P.K., B.E., and S.C.L. provided critical revisions. All authors approved the
final version of the manuscript.
Additional Information
Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
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