Why grandparents don’t understand jokes: Ability to recognise emotional cues declines with age

Sometimes it might feel like it’s difficult to understand your grandchildren’s jokes. 

But not to worry – as research suggests this is just part of getting older.

A study has shown that the brain’s ability to correctly recognise emotional cues in voices declines as we age.

And the identification of both positive and negative emotions are affected, making it hard to discern a joke from a serious statement.

Across three experiments researchers from the University of Essex found over-65s are less accurate at detecting emotions compared to those in their 20s.

When listening to speech, pensioners were only able to correctly identify the emotion of happiness 35 per cent of the time, compared to 52 per cent in younger people.

Older adults also scored lower at decoding the emotions of disgust and anger.

Researcher Constantina Maltezou-Papastylianou said: ‘How we say something and our tone of voice is as important during social interactions as to what we are actually saying.

‘Have you ever had an awkward moment where something was said with a certain intent but was received differently?

‘I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve joked to my grandmother, only to find out she thought I was being serious, even though I was aiming for a light-hearted tone.

‘Research suggests that one of the explanations for this mismatch of our emotional intention when we say something and how it is actually received by the listener may be due to hormonal and anatomical changes that happen in a brain as we age naturally.’

The research, published in PLOS One, examined two age-split groups of volunteers over a series of experiments.

Listeners were asked to identify which emotion was represented in the speaker’s tone of voice. Overall, the younger group (blue) had an average 76 per cent success rate, whereas the older participants (red) only managed 69 per cent

All had good hearing, had English as a native language and were split into groups with an average age of 67 and 21. 

Over the course of three experiments, 117 people were played 196 sentences and asked to judge the emotion behind them.

Listeners were asked to identify which emotion was represented in the speaker’s tone of voice.

Overall, the younger group had an average 76 per cent success rate, whereas the older participants only managed 69 per cent.

It is thought the decline is largely due to natural changes in the brain associated with healthy ageing and more research will now explore why we lose the ability to grasp someone’s emotional intention as we age.

‘This research is another step forward in understanding how we interpret vocal emotion expressions as we age,’ Mrs Maltezou-Papastylianou said.

‘Emotional recognition from voice can impact many aspects of life and it is important to keep this in mind when interacting with others, particularly with older adults.

‘We hope to build on this research going forward and expand the work to look at different demographics, characteristics and personalities.’