Sascha Schneider M.A. Research Associate Emotion induction via decorative pictures Benefit or harm for learning? Sascha Schneider M.A. Research Associate

Emotions and Media

Emotions and Media Media Equation Reeves & Nass (1996)

CATLM (Moreno, 2005; Moreno, & Mayer, 2007) Learning and Media CATLM (Moreno, 2005; Moreno, & Mayer, 2007)

Emotions and Learning „Emotion-as-facilitator-hypothesis“ Task performance improvement (Lindström & Bohlin, 2011), response precision (Anderson & Phelps, 2001), increase in recognition performance (Levens & Phelps, 2008), enhancement of cognitive processing (Boekaerts, 2007), increased metacognitive processing (Yang, Yang, & Isen, 2013) „Emotion-as-supressor-hypothesis“ misleading goals (Daniels et al., 2009), decreased focusing (Norman, 2004), an illusion of learning (Baumeister, Alquist, & Vohs, 2014), working memory impairment (Eysenck, Derakshan, Santos, & Calvo, 2007; Martin & Kerns, 2011), reduced cognitive processing (Lagner et al., 2014) learning t learning t

Decorative pictures and learning Theoretical mistakes within research on seductive details: No examination of emotional impact No meaningful link between pictures and material Missing information on irrelevant content

Study 1 - Design 82 students (mean age: 24.2 years, 71% female) Only a variation of emotions (positive vs. negative) Pre-tested pictures Learning material about cell division prior knowledge: low / no significant difference Dependent variables: Retention and transfer tasks (Multiple choice) Semantic Differential questionnaire (Russell & Mehrabian, 1977) Scales: Pleasure, Arousal, Dominance

Study 1 - Hypotheses Positive vs. Negative Dominance Dominance

Study 1 - Materials

Study 1 - Results p = .043, ηp2 = .05 p = .02, ηp2 = .07 Retention scores ranges from 0 to 21 Transfer scores ranges from 0 to 12 p = .02, ηp2 = .07 p = .043, ηp2 = .05

Study 1 - Results p < .001 ηp2 = .30 p = .001 ηp2 = .13 n.s. No differences in motivation or cognitive load p < .001 ηp2 = .30 p = .001 ηp2 = .13 n.s.

Discussion Learning enhancement through positive pictures Higher pleasure and arousal scores for positive pictures Higher arousal scores might have led to long-term memory enhancement (Bradley, Greenwald, Petry, & Lang, 1992) A closer look at different activation levels could be helpful

Study 2 - Design 121 students (mean age: 23.2 years, 77% female) Only a variation of emotions (PAE, NAE, NDE) Pre-tested pictures (N = 96) Learning material about Volleyball prior knowledge: low / no significant difference Dependent variables: Retention and transfer tasks (Multiple choice) Task-irrelevant thinking (Sarason, 1984) Intrinsic motivation (Guay, Vallerand, & Blanchard, 2000) referring to Pekrun et al. (2002)

Study 2 - Hypotheses Positive Active vs. Negative Active vs. Negative Deactive

Study 2 Volleyball – An Introduction Introduction The Serve Game Structure

Study 2 - Results p < .001, ηp2 = .02 p = .04, ηp2 = .01 n.s.

Study 2 - Results p = .03, ηp2 = .01 n.s. p < .001, ηp2 = .03

Discussion PAE pictures are best suited to increase retention Transfer scores are decreased by a low activation Retention perfomances might be affected by task- irrelevant thinking Transfer might additionally be affected by an increase in motivation for active pictures