Associative Memory and Trustworthiness of Artificial Faces in Young and Older Adults

BACKGROUND: Older adults generally show deficits in associative memory and increased trust in faces compared to young adults. However, little research has been conducted on older adults' associative memory and trust in artificial faces. The present study investigated young and older adults' perceived trustworthiness for real and artificial faces that were associated with either a scam or neutral condition. METHODS: Participants viewed the faces before and after they were associated with either a scam or a neutral condition and subsequently rated each face on perceived trustworthiness. Participants were also tested on their memory for these associations. RESULTS: Both young and older adults rated faces associated with a scam as being less trustworthy. However, overall, older adults rated faces as more trustworthy than young adults. In addition, young adults were the only group to rate artificial faces as being less trustworthy than real faces, and older adults did not show this difference. Young and older adults also had similar accuracy for remembering the associations of real and artificial faces. However, only young adults had higher accuracy for real faces than artificial ones, while older adults showed no difference. CONCLUSION: These findings illustrate that older adults may perceive and remember artificial faces differently from young adults.