Deficits in facial emotional valence processing in older people with subjective memory complaints: Behavioral and electrophysiological evidence

Subjective memory complaints (SMCs), which occur in the absence of clinical memory deficits, may precede mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or Alzheimer''s disease (AD). Some studies have reported a deficit in facial emotion processing in people with MCI or AD. However, it is unclear whether this deficit is also present in older people with SMCs. The present study used behavioral measurements and event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the facial emotion processing of 41 older people with SMCs and 38 without SMCs. The task contained 204 images displaying facial emotions (positive, negative, and neutral). In terms of behavior, our results showed that participants with SMCs were slower an…