Cognitive reserve and emotion recognition in the context of normal aging

The Cognitive Reserve (CR) hypothesis accounts for individual differences in vulnerability to age- or pathological-related brain changes. It suggests lifetime influences (e.g., education) increase the effectiveness of cognitive processing in later life. While evidence suggests CR proxies predict cognitive performance in older age, it is less clear whether CR proxies attenuate age-related decline on social cognitive tasks. This study investigated the effect of CR proxies on unimodal and cross-modal emotion identification. Sixty-six older adults aged 60–78 years were assessed on CR proxies (Cognitive Reserve Index Questionnaire, NART), unimodal(faces only, voices only), and cross-modal (faces and voices combined) emotion recognition and executive function (Stroop Test). No CR proxy predicted performance on emotion recognition. However, NART IQ predicted performance on the Stroop test; higher NART IQ was associated with better performance. The current study suggests CR proxies do not predict performance on social cognition tests but do predict performance on cognitive tasks.