Abstract: According to socioemotional selectivity theory, older adults have a greater focus on emotional goals, especially the positive information contributing to emotional goals. Perceived constraints on time lead older adults to avoid negative and favor positive information in their attention and memory. Both automatic and controlled processes influence the positivity effect in attention and memory. The effect of the limited time perspective on attention and memory is controlled by cognition, and it is also constrained by cognitive resource and capacity. Presently, there are some disadvantages on the researches related to SST. We need to enrich the research methods and enlarge the research domain in the future work. As the development of cognitive neuroscience, it is necessary to observe and explore the effects of emotion on the aging cognitive process by advance and precise apparatus

Key words: aging, paradox of aging, positivity effect, socioemotional selectivity theory