Introduction:

Communicative and social functioning in old age involves cognitive and emotional resources. According to the Socioemotional Selectivity Theory (TSS), older adults have an affinity for positive events and cultivate their emotional skills.

Objective

: To explore the relationship between communicative and social functioning and the processing of emotional stimuli in the elderly. Materials and methods: Older adults and young adults performed a computerized lexical decision task (LDT) and were assessed on their communicative functioning.

Results:

There were statistically significant differences in the valence factor, with faster processing of stimuli with emotional versus non-emotional content (2196 = 36.39, p <.001); Regarding communicative and social functioning, when comparing it with performance in the TDL, it was shown that older adults obtained longer reaction times and higher error rates in the processing of stimuli, as well as lower scores in the ASHA-FACS.

Conclusion:

Even when there is no evidence of an interaction between the processing of emotional stimuli and communicative and social functioning, emotional valence influences word processing in older adults, with a preference and selectivity for positive stimuli.

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