Emotion, attention and delayed recall task performance: how emotional intensity drives eyes during foreign language subtitle processing

Emotion, attention and delayed recall task performance

Authors

  • Emrah Dolgunsoz Bayburt University, Dept. of ELThttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-1277-2177

Abstract

Emotions and cognitive processes are intertwined terms and can frame how we behave and learn. The main aim of this research was to investigate the effect of emotion on attention during L2 subtitle processing and to scrutinize emotional intensity as a factor on delayed L2 vocabulary recall tasks. 40 intermediate learners of EFL watched a funny or a boring video in which subtitles ended with an enhanced non-word while their eye movements and facial expressions were recorded. After the experiment, they were asked to take an immediate post-test consisted of choosing the correct non-words mentioned in the videos. 5 days later, they sat for the same test individually in a randomized order. The results showed that emotional intensity did not affect time spent on subtitle areas but it was found to have an effect of recalling vocabulary items after a long delay. The results were discussed in terms of noticing and emotional enhancement effect on memory.

References

Buchanan, T., & Adolphs, R. (2003). The role of the human amygdala in emotional modulation of long-term declarative memory. In S. Moore & M. Oaksford (Eds.), Emotional cognition: From brain to behavior, 9–34. London: John Benjamins

Cahill, L., Haier, R. J., Fallon, J., Alkire, M. T., Tang, C., Keator, D., & Mcgaugh, J. L. (1996). Amygdala activity at encoding correlated with long-term, free recall of emotional information. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 93(15), 8016-8021.

Calvo, M. G., Gutiérrez-García, A., & Del Líbano, M. (2016). What makes a smiling face look happy? Visual saliency, distinctiveness, and affect. Psychological Research, 82(2), 296–309. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-016-0829-3

Conway, M. A. (1990). Autobiographical memory: An introduction. Philadelphia: Open University Press.

Cowan, N. (1988). Evolving conceptions of memory storage, selective attention, and their mutual constraints within the human information-processing system. Psychological Bulletin, 104, 163 – 191.

Critchley, H.D., Elliott, R., Mathias, C. J., Dolan, R. J. (2000). Neural activity relating to generation and representation of galvanic skin conductance responses: A functional magnetic resonance imaging study. J. Neurosci., 20 (2000), 3033-304

D’Mello, S. K. (2016). Automated mental state detection for mental health care. In D. Luxton (Ed.), Artificial Intelligence in Behavioral and Mental Health Care, 117–131. Elsevier/Academic Press: San Diego, CA. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-420248-1.00005-2

Day, R. R., Omura, C., & Hiramatsu, M. (1992). Incidental EFL vocabulary learning and reading. Reading in a foreign language, 7, 541-541.

Dolan, R. J. (2002). Emotion, cognition, and behavior. Science, 298, 1191–1195.

Dolgunsöz, E. (2015). Measuring attention in second language reading using eye-tracking: The case of the noticing hypothesis. JEMR, 9(5):4, 1-18 DOI 10.16910/jemr.8.5.4

Dolgunsöz, E. (2019). The Effect of Taboo Content on Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition in a Foreign Language: A Facial Expression Analysis Study. Studia Psychologica, 61(1), 3-16. doi: 10.21909/sp.2019.01.768

Eastwood, J.D., Smilek, D., & Merikle, P.M. (2001). Differential attentional guidance by unattended faces expressing positive and negative emotion. Perception & Psychophysics, 63, 1004–1013.

Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. (1971). Constants across cultures in the face and emotion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 17(2), 124–129. doi/10.1037/h0030377

Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. (1978). Facial action coding system. Consulting Psychologists Press Inc., Palo Alto, California.

Ekman, P., Friesen, W. V., & Hager, J. C. (2002). Facial action coding system: The manual on CD ROM. A Human Face, Salt Lake City, 77-254.

Finn, B., & Roediger, H. L. (2011). Enhancing retention through reconsolidation: Negative emotional arousal following retrieval enhances later recall. Psychological science, 22(6), 781-786.

Fox, E., Russo, R., Bowles, R., & Dutton, K. (2001). Do threatening stimuli draw or hold visual attention in subclinical anxiety? Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 130, 681–700.

Fridlund, A. J., Ekman, P., & Oster, H. (1987). Facial expressions of emotion: Review of the literature, 1970-1983. In A. W. Siegman & S. Feldstein (Eds.), Nonverbal behavior and communication, 143–224. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Godfroid, A., Boers, F., & Housen, A. (2013). An Eye for Words. Gauging the role of attention in L2 vocabulary acquisition by means of eye tracking. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 35,3, 483-517. doi:10.1017/S0272263113000119

Godfroid, A., Ahn, J., Choi, I., Ballard, L., Cui, Y., Johnston, S., & Yoon, H. J. (2018). Incidental vocabulary learning in a natural reading context: an eye-tracking study. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 21(3), 563-584. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728917000219

Hamann, S. (2001). Cognitive and neural mechanisms of emotional memory. Trends in Cognitive Science, 5, 394– 400.

Heuer, F., & Reisberg,D. (1990).Vivid memories of emotional events: The accuracy of remembered minutiae. Memory & Cognition, 18, 496-506.

Izumi, S. (2002). Output, input enhancement, and the Noticing Hypothesis: An experimental study on ESL Relativization. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 24, 541 – 577.

Knight, M., Seymour, T. L., Gaunt, J. T., Baker, C., Nesmith, K., & Mather, M. (2007). Aging and goal-directed emotional attention: distraction reverses emotional biases. Emotion, 7(4), 705. DOI: 10.1037/1528-3542.7.4.705

Lang, P. J., Bradley, M. M., Fitzsimmons, J. R., Cuthbert, B. N., Scott, J. D., Moulder, B., & Nangia, V. (1998). Emotional arousal and activation of the visual cortex: An fMRI analysis. Psychophysiology, 35(2), 199-210.

Laufer, B. (2003). Vocabulary acquisition in a second language: Do learners really acquire most vocabulary by reading? Some empirical evidence. Canadian Modern Language Review, 59(4), 567-587.

Laufer, B., & Hulstijn, J. (2001). Incidental vocabulary acquisition in a second language: The construct of task-induced involvement. Applied linguistics, 22(1), 1-26.

Mather, M., & Knight, M.R. (2006). Angry faces get noticed quickly: Threat detection is not impaired among older adults. Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 61, P54–P57. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/61.1.P54

Mather, M., Mitchell, K.J., Raye, C.L., Novak, D.L., Greene, E.J., & Johnson, M.K. (2006). Emotional arousal can impair feature binding in working memory. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 18, 614–625

Nagy, W. E., Anderson, R. C., & Herman, P. A. (1987). Learning word meanings from context during normal reading. American educational research journal, 24(2), 237-270.

Neisser, U., & Harsch, N. (1992). Phantom flashbulbs: False recollections of hearing the news about Challenger. In E. Winograd & U. Neisser (Eds.), Affect and accuracy in recall: Studies of “flashbulb†memories (pp. 9-31). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Nielson, K. A., Powless, M. (2007). Positive and negative sources of emotional arousal enhance long-term word-list retention when induced as long as 30 min after learning. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 88(1), 40–47. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nlm.2007.03.005

Nummenmaa, L., Hyona, J., & Calvo, M.G. (2006). Eye movement assessment of selective attentional capture by emotional pictures. Emotion, 6, 257–268. DOI: 10.1037/1528-3542.6.2.257

Oatley, K., & Jenkins, J.M. (1996). Understanding emotion. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers.

O'Doherty, J., Kringelbach, M. L., Rolls, E. T., Hornak, J., & Andrews, C. (2001). Abstract reward and punishment representations in the human orbitofrontal cortex. Nature neuroscience, 4(1), 95.

Öhman, A., Flykt, A., & Esteves, F. (2001). Emotion drives attention: Detecting the snake in the grass. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 130, 466–478.

Pellegrino, R., Crandall, P. G., & Seo, H. S. (2015). Hand washing and disgust response to handling different food stimuli between two different cultures. Food Research International, 76, 301–308. https: //doi.org/10.1016/j.foodres.2014.12.027

Rastle, K., Harrington, J., & Coltheart, M. (2002). 358,534 nonwords: The ARC Nonword Database. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 55A, 1339-1362.

Robinson, P. (1995). Attention, memory, and the “noticing†hypothesis. Language learning, 45(2), 283-331.

Robinson, P. (2003). Attention and memory during SLA. In C. Doughty & M. H. Long (Eds.), The handbook of second language acquisition, 631-678. Oxford: Blackwell.

Rosler, A., Ulrich, C., Billino, J., Sterzer, P., Weidauer, S., Bernhardt, T., Steinmetz, H., Frohich, L., & Kleinschmidt, A. (2005). Effects of arousing emotional scenes on the distribution of visuospatial attention: Changes with aging and early subcortical vascular dementia. Journal of the Neurological Sciences, 229–230, 109–116.

Schmidt, R. W. (1990). The role of consciousness in second language learning. Applied linguistics, 11(2), 129-158.

Schupp H. T., Cuthbert B. N., Bradley M. M., Cacioppo J. T., Ito T., Lang P. J. (2000). Affective picture processing: the late positive potential is modulated by motivational relevance. Psychophysiology. 37 257–261. 10.1111/1469-8986.3720257

Seli P., Wammes J. D., Risko E. F., Smilek D. (2016). On the relation between motivation and retention in educational contexts: the role of intentional and unintentional mind wandering. Psychon. Bull. Rev. 23 1280–1287. DOI 10.3758/s13423-015-0979-0

Smith, E. E., & Kosslyn, S. M. (2013). Cognitive psychology: Pearson new international edition: Mind and brain. Pearson Higher Ed.

Talarico, J. M., LaBar, K. S., & Rubin, D. C. (2004). Emotional intensity predicts autobiographical memory experience. Memory & Cognition, 32(7), 1118–1132. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03196886

Vuilleumier, P., Richardson, M.P., Armony, J.L., Driver, J., & Dolan, R.J. (2004). Distant influences of amygdala lesion on visual cortical activation during emotional face processing. Nature Neuroscience, 7, 1271–1278

Vuilleumier, P. (2005). How brains beware: neural mechanisms of emotional attention. Trends in cognitive sciences, 9(12), 585-594.

Downloads

Published

2021-01-04