Abstract

This study examined age-related differences in emotional memory and reactivity, focusing on the role of sleep. Ninety-seven participants were assigned to three groups: young adults were randomly assigned to either a wake (n =33) or sleep condition (n =34), and older adults completed the sleep condition (n =30). Participants completed an emotional image-recognition task 12 hours after encoding. Sleep enhanced young adults’ memory, particularly for neutral and negative stimuli. Older adults exhibited a positive bias in emotional reactivity, rating negative stimuli more positively than young adults. Additionally, sleep efficiency, rather than total sleep time, was associated with next-day emotional reactivity. This suggests that sleep quality may play a distinct role in emotional processing and well-being in young and older adults, with sleep efficiency emerging as a meaningful health-related factor.