Arousal, affect, and children's performance on a perceptual organization task
Description
The purpose of this investigation was to examine the independent as well as interactive effects of arousal and affect upon cognitive processing. Subjects were 108 pre-school children, 54 males and 54 females, recruited from various pre-school facilities. Children were randomly assigned to conditions in which they were exposed to one of three arousal inductions and one of three affect inductions. Arousal inductions involved listening to either fast or slow music or viewing pictures, and demonstrating either excessive or limited motor activity during the induction period. Children were later grouped according to low or moderate arousal level, depending upon arousal response demonstrated as a result of the arousal induction procedure. Arousal level was determined by calculating pulse deviation from baseline. Affect was induced by telling children a story of either social acceptance, social rejection, or of neutral material. After having participated in both inductions, subjects completed 10 items from a design construction task taken from the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children (Kaufman and Kaufman, 1983). The number of problems correctly completed and time taken to complete problems served as the dependent measures within the investigation Results of the study revealed that subjects who experienced positive affect combined with low arousal (i.e., a calm state) correctly completed the greatest number of problems. Subjects who experienced negative affect combined with either low or moderate arousal (i.e., sad or distressed affect) completed significantly fewer problems than calm subjects as did subjects who experienced neutral affect combined with low arousal. Arousal level was particularly important in the neutral affect condition, for neutral affect subjects who experienced moderate arousal correctly completed significantly more problems than neutral affect subjects in the low arousal condition. Males and females performed with similar levels of speed under low arousal, but in the moderate arousal condition, males worked with significantly greater speed than females. This finding was interpreted as suggesting that task demands may have been lower for males than females; hence, moderate arousal was facilitative to performance for males but debilitating for females