Tucson, Arizona — The next time you need to proofread a confidential document, or a friend asks you to check an important email, it’s good to think about a few things in life that make you particularly angry. It may sound like a wacky strategy, but intriguing new research from the University of Arizona shows that when you’re in a bad mood, you actually tend to identify literary or descriptive inconsistencies more quickly. understood.
These findings build on previous research investigating how the brain processes language and are brought to you by Vicky Lai, assistant professor of psychology and cognitive science at the University of Arizona. The researchers originally aimed to analyze and better understand how people’s brains respond to language when they are in a happy mood, as opposed to a negative mood.
“Mood and language It seems to be supported by various brain networks. But we have he one brain, and the two brains are processed in the same brain, so there’s a lot of interaction going on,” said Professor Lai. university liberation“When people are in a negative mood, they show they are more cautious and analytical. They scrutinize what the text actually says, not just relying on default world knowledge.” .”
“Mood issues” when performing tasks
The research team used a sad movie clip (“Sophie’s Choice”) or funny tv show. (“friend”). A digital survey was conducted to measure participants’ mood before and after viewing the clip. The funny clips did not appear to affect participants’ moods that much, while the sad clips worsened the participants’ mental states.
Participants were then assigned to listen to a series of emotionally neutral voice recordings consisting of four-sentence stories. Each sentence contains a “critical sentence” that supports or violates pre-determined word knowledge. Each key sentence was presented to the subject’s screen one word at a time. Meanwhile, participants’ EEGs were monitored by EEG.
A more concrete example: The authors of the study showed participants a story focused on driving at night, ending with the critical statement, “If you turn on the lights, you can see more.” Another article centered around stargazing had a similarly critical sentence: “Lights make it hard to see.” While that statement is certainly accurate when it comes to staring at the night sky, the common notion that turning on an array of lights reduces visibility is a less familiar concept that defies default knowledge.
In addition, a version of the story with the important sentences replaced was also displayed. As a result, these amended statements did not match the context of the story. For example, a story about driving at night might include the sentence, “When you turn on the lights, it makes it harder to see.”
The study authors then examined how the subjects’ brains responded to the discrepancy. according to their moodIt was discovered that when subjects were in a bad mood, they exhibited a range of brain activity closely associated with reanalysis. “We have shown that mood matters, and perhaps when performing some tasks, take note of our moods‘ adds Professor Lai. “If you’re in a bad mood, you may need to do more detail-oriented work, such as proofreading.”
It’s okay to be in a bad mood once in a while
All subjects completed the experiment twice. Once in a negative mood state and once in a happy mood state. The exams were held at intervals of one week, and the same story was presented each time.
“These are the same stories, but different moods make the brain perceive them differently. Sad moods are more analytical,” Professor Lai points out.
The actual research for this project was done in the Netherlands. That is, the subjects were native Dutch speakers. Still, Lai believes these findings have broad translation. A spectrum of languages and cultures.
It is important to mention that this study only included women. Professor Lai and her colleagues wanted their study to be consistent with existing literature that used only female participants. rice field. Future studies should also include men. In the meantime, however, Professor Lai and her colleagues believe that mood can affect us in far more ways than previously thought.
“When people think about how their mood affects them, most people think about things like being grumpy, eating more ice cream, or at best interpreting other people’s stories in a biased way,” said the co-author of the study. The author, Jos van Berkum of the Netherlands, concludes Utrecht University. “But there’s a lot more going on in the unexpected corner of our minds. It’s really interesting. Imagine a laptop’s accuracy changing with battery level. Something like that.” However, it seems that such a thing is occurring in human information processing, and perhaps also in related species (information processing).
of study is published in Communication frontier.
