Frédérique Cuisinier

Impact of induced joy on literacy in children: does the nature of the task make a difference?

ABSTRACT This research examined whether induced joy influences fifth graders’ performance in literacy tasks. Children were asked to recall a joyful experience, used as a joy induction, before completing either a grammar (Study 1) or textual comprehension task (Study 2). The grammar task involved understanding at the surface level and retrieval of appropriate declarative and procedural knowledge, but limited elaboration unlike the textual comprehension task, which tackled inference generation. By differentiating tasks based on depth of processing required for completion we aimed at testing the validity of two concurrent hypotheses: that of a facilitating effect and that of a detrimental effect of induced joy. Compared to controls, joy induced children showed better performance on the grammar task – specifically children with lower language ability. No differences across groups emerged as a function of joy induction on the text comprehension task. Results are discussed with respect to emotion effects on cognition.

Cognition and Emotion

What is the relation between cognition and emotion? Three kinds of answers can be discerned from the educational and psychological literature. First, some emotional reactions can be elicited without the intervention of cognition (the opposite has not yet been documented). Second, cognition is a cause of emotion. Thus, many emotional reactions and modulations are contingent upon or influenced by the individual’s (cognitive) appraisal of the stimuli coming from his/her body, mind, and environment. There is also a robust relationship between the individual’s understanding of emotion (including of their regulation) and his/her emotional well-being. Third, emotion is a cause of cognition. Thus, emotional arousal and valence have an influence on, for example, memory, attention, and creativity. This impact is neither linear nor symmetrical: Emotional arousal has to be neither too low nor too high to have an optimum impact and the impact of negative emotions seems clearer than the impact of positive emotions. In this article, we claim that the identification of causal relations between cognition and emotion may to a great extent depend on the moment one takes a snapshot in the flow of the individual’s subjective experience. We also claim that, as a function of the situation (context, circumstances, etc.) and the individual (personality level of development, etc.), either cognition or emotion may be dominating the individual’s mental functioning and, further, that the absence of this circularity would be dysfunctional for the individual.

Peer’s mental states in a collaborative setting: Developmental perspective on children’s inferential abilities

The present study investigates the development of children’s ability to make inferences about a peer’s mental state. In this study 48 eight-year-old children, 49 ten-year-old children and 44 adults observed and analyzed short video sequences, extracts from a socio-cognitive interaction between two children working on a mathematical task. The participants inferred mental states of one of the videotaped children while answering questions. Half of the participants watched the different sequences with sound and the other half watched them without sound. The results show that ten-year-old children are nearly as skilled as adults in making inferences but that eight-years-old children make less relevant inferences. The access to verbal information influenced the inferences only for the eight-year-old group.RésuméCette étude porte sur le développement des compétences inférentielles des enfants concernant les états mentaux d’autrui lorsqu’il interagit. Quarante huit enfants de 8 ans, 49 enfants de 10 ans et 44 adultes ont réalisé une tâche d’inférences. Elle concerne les états mentaux d’un garçon filmé lors de la co-résolution d’un exercice de mathématiques. Les participants observent de courtes séquences de cette interaction et produisent des inférences par l’intermédiaire de questions. La moitié des participants regarde les séquences avec le son et l’autre moitié regarde les mêmes séquences privées du son. Les résultats montrent que les enfants de 10 ans sont déjà presque aussi compétents que les adultes. En revanche, les enfants de 8 ans produisent des inférences moins pertinentes. L’accès aux informations verbales a une influence sur la pertinence des inférences uniquement pour le groupe des enfants de 8 ans.