Bad Moods Can be Good:

Jenny Wu

Mood Effects on Text Comprehension

Mood Influences in Daily Life

Mood impacts how we perceive, experience, and remember what we encounter in the world.

Our moods shape many cognitive processes and therefore are influential in even common activities

Research and theory demonstrate that, broadly speaking, positive and negative mood lead to differences in attention and information processing

Global vs. Local Processing Positive and negative mood lead to differences in attention and processing (Abele & Petzold, 1994; Gasper & Clore, 2002)

Positive mood fosters global processing while negative mood fosters local processing.

Affect-as-informationPositive mood indicates that the current environment is

safe (Schwarz, 1990).

• Promotes use of heuristic strategies (Armitage et al., 1999)

• Utilizes accessible knowledge (Bless et al., 1996)

Negative mood indicates that the current environment is problematic.

• Triggers careful stimulus processing (Schwarz & Bless, 1991)

• Focuses on incoming information and external cues (Bless et al., 1996; Koch & Forgas, 2012)

Influences in Processes & Strategies This deviation in attention and subsequent stimulus

processing leads to individuals in positive and negative moods utilizing different processing strategies in tasks.

And so effectively fosters differences in behavior and performance for different tasks (Fiedler & Beier, 2014)

Effects of Positive MoodIncreases flexible representations (Huntsinger, Clore &

Bar-Anan, 2010)

Promotes knowledge-based organization (Bless et al., 1992)

Increases text-based and constructive inferences (Bohn-Gettler & Rapp, 2012)

Benefits performance on creative problem-solving (Hertel et al., 2000)

Effects of Negative Mood Increases careful responding and avoidance of errors

(Koch & Forgas, 2012)

Promotes item-specific processing and memory recall and recognition (Forgas et al., 2009)

Promotes use of causal explanations (Bohner et al., 1988)

Leads to better analytical reasoning (Barthe & Funke, 2010)

Benefits systematic problem-solving (Spering et al., 2005)

Mood & Reading ComprehensionResearch and theory on mood influences illustrate costs

and benefits in methodical or creative tasks

do not apply so straightforwardly to other activities

Reading comprehension requires both stimulus processing and knowledge integration

So let’s talk about reading…

Aims

Past research has focused on word lists, sentences, or fictional narratives (Bower, 1981; Ellis, Thomas, & Rodriguez, 1984; Egidi & Gerrig, 2009)

Exception is Bohn-Gettler & Rapp (2011) on differences in processes during reading and comprehension

Aim to expand the investigation of reading comprehension

Bohn-Gettler & Rapp, 2011Examined mood influences on text processing and

comprehension

Induced neutral, positive, and negative mood on 110 participants

Read one of four texts adapted from Scientific American

• Engaged in a think-aloud task as they read each sentence

• Completed a 3-min distractor task

Summarized the text

Bohn-Gettler & Rapp, 2011Results indicate:

• Both moods led to increased paraphrasing

• Positive mood increased text-based inferences

• Both moods remembered more important points of the text compared to neutral

No differences were found between positive and negative mood in text comprehension, only in reading processes

Questions: Isn’t that Strange? Reasons to think there would also be different outcomes

of subsequent text comprehension

• abundant theory on mood influences of stimulus processing and information-processing strategies

• deviation between moods in reading processes

Target nuances of positive and negative mood effects on text comprehension

• expand the text comprehension assessment

Questions: Mood Congruency?Mood congruency: an alignment between the mood of the

reader and emotional valence of a stimulus

• found to benefit various tasks of text comprehension: word, sentence, or narrative text materials (Bower, Monteiro, & Gilligan, 1978; Havas, Glenberg, & Rinck, 2007)

• Egidi & Gerrig (2009) found readers expect the content of a text to be aligned with their current mood and express surprise at incongruent narrative endings

Examined mood congruency on text comprehension

Questions: Hypotheses?Do the differences in processing styles invoked by mood

affect learning and text comprehension?

• Positive and negative mood will show differences in text comprehension

Does mood congruency of the reader and the text moderate the influence of mood on comprehension?

• Mood congruency of the reader and the text will promote comprehension

Participants N = 160 (51% female; 49% male)

completed study through Amazon Mechanical Turk

compensated $1.50 for completing the 20-25 minute study

Conditions2 x 2 between-subjects design

Randomly assigned to mood and text conditions

• Mood Induction – positive or negative

• Text – positive or negative

Mood Induction Video induction (Rottenberg, Ray, & Gross, 2007)

Each participant watched an approximately 2.5 minute long video

Negative Video - The Champ

Positive Video – Whose Line is it Anyway?

Texts Participants read a text adapted from a lecture on

animal adaptations

explains the concepts of adaptation, genetic variation, and sexual reproduction

uses an example of how a polar bear’s traits help it survive in the North Pole

Summary by Paragraphs

1. Polar bears can live in the North Pole because of adaptations

2. Body fat, wide paws, and white fur to survive the North Pole

3. Genetic variation, due to sexual reproduction or genetic mutation, can lead to different characteristics

4. Variations can increase an organism’s chances of survival in a particular environment

5. Changes in the environment can mean animals without adaptations would not survive.

Positive/Negative Text

Positive/negative versions were written while retaining content

Positive/negative words from database of emotion norms for nearly 14,000 English words (Warriner, Kuperman, & Brysbaert, 2013)

• included ratings of emotional valence invoked by each word

• over 700 raters

Sentences that could not be rewritten without changing the content were left neutral.

Example sentencesNegative: Our polar bear resides in the bleak, miserable

North Pole, which means that it has to suffer the freezing temperatures.

Positive: Our polar bear lives in the North Pole, which means that it heartily faces the challenges of the wintry weather and finding food in the environment.

Neutral (in both texts): How can animals that are related to each other be different?

Text Length: both versions of the text were 58 sentences.

Difficulty: assessed by Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level (FKGL) (Klare, 1974)

• Negative FKGL = 9.3

• Positive FKGL = 9.1

Positive/Negative content: Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) category scores (Pennebaker, Booth, & Francis (2007)

  Negative Positive

positive emotion 0.57 4.12

negative emotion 4.12 0.11

Test Questions & Error TypesMultiple choice questions created using Graesser &

Person (1994) question-asking taxonomy

• 14 surface questions: 7 in pre-test and 7 in post-test counterbalanced

• 6 inference questions in post-test

Four answer choices (Ozuru et al., 2007):

• Correct answer

• Near miss error

• Thematic miss error

• Distractor error

Error TypesNear miss errors overlap conceptually with the correct

answer

• technically correct, but not the best answer

Thematic miss errors are plausible, but demonstrate a misconception or actually refer to a different but related point

• Accurate, but not correct answers

Distractor errors are inconsistent altogether

Surface Question Example Text: Also, the polar bear is white, so it can blend in with

his snowy environment. This allows it to sneak up on its food prey when it hunts!

Question: According to the text, what are polar bears able to do because of their white color?

• Correct answer: sneak up on prey

• Near miss: hide from predators

• Thematic miss: reflect light

• Distractor: blend in with the ice and snow

Inference Question ExampleText: These variations among individuals in a species

usually have no effect on the individual or its survival... But sometimes, these variations can negatively impact the individuals survival!

Question: Genetic mutations occurred in a population of field mice so that some mice have red fur bright enough to be easily spotted, some mice can run very fast, and some mice are unchanged. Which mice would you expect to reproduce?

• Correct answer: the mice that run very fast and the mice that are unchanged

• Near miss: only the mice that run very fast

• Thematic miss: all are equally likely to reproduce

• Distractor: There is not enough information to predict chances of survival

ProcedureCompleted pre-test

Watched positive/negative video and self-reported affect

Read positive/negative text and self-reported affect

• Self-paced, presented one sentence at a time

• advanced by pressing the space bar

Completed post-test

If watched negative video, ended with positive video

Manipulation check

used ratings of pleasantness in a univariate ANOVA by video condition

Scale: 1-9

• Very unpleasant – very pleasant

N = 79 N = 81

Negative Positive0.00

1.00

2.00

3.00

4.00

5.00

6.00

7.00

8.00

4.46

6.98

Pleasantness*

examined valence after watching the videos to verify the effectiveness of the mood induction

Arousal

same analyses with ratings of arousal

Scale 1 – 9

• Sleepy – active

Arousal included as covariate for post-test analyses Negative Positive

1.00

2.00

3.00

4.00

5.00

6.00

7.00

8.00

9.00

6.647.04

Arousal

determine if mood had unintentional effect on arousal (Bohn-Gettler & Rapp, 2012)

N = 79 N = 81

Confounds: overall reading time

N = 45 N = 66 N = 52 N = 59

Neg Video Pos Video0.00

0.50

1.00

1.50

2.00

2.50

3.00

3.50

4.00

4.50

5.00

3.51 3.66

RT By Video

Neg Text Pos Text0.00

0.50

1.00

1.50

2.00

2.50

3.00

3.50

4.00

4.50

5.00

3.453.73

RT by Text

2x2 ANOVA of total reading time in minutes by video and by text

Confounds: Prior Knowledge

Neg Video Pos Video0.00

0.05

0.10

0.15

0.20

0.25

0.30

0.35

0.40

0.45

0.50

0.240.26

Prior Knowledge By Video

Neg Text Pos Text0.00

0.05

0.10

0.15

0.20

0.25

0.30

0.35

0.40

0.45

0.50

0.25 0.24

Prior Knowledge by Text

N = 79 N = 81 N = 78 N = 82

2x2 ANOVA of pre-test performance by video and by text

Post-test Analyses2x2 ANOVAs by video and by text on proportions of:

• Post-test surface and inference-level questions

• Near miss, thematic miss, and distractor proportions

Covariates: pre-test performance (prior knowledge) and arousal

Found no main effects of text or interaction effects of video x text

Post-test Performance

N = 79 for Neg Video; N = 81 for Pos Video

Surface Inference Combined0.00

0.10

0.20

0.30

0.40

0.50

0.60

0.70

0.80

0.90

1.00

0.43

0.56

0.49

0.42

0.490.45

Neg Video

Pos Video

Error Analyses

N = 79 for Neg Video; N = 81 for Pos Video

NearMiss ThematicMiss Distractor Combined0.00

0.10

0.20

0.30

0.40

0.50

0.60

0.70

0.80

0.90

1.00

0.38

0.20

0.42

0.51

0.33

0.25

0.42

0.55

Neg Video

Pos Video

ConclusionsDifferences in performance on inference questions

because answer choices involved picking the best answer to the question.

• required understanding content and using detailed knowledge to discern correct answer, near miss, and thematic miss

Negative mood paid more attention to text-specific details

• Performance bolstered by careful stimulus processing

Positive mood integrated knowledge with big ideas

• Made more thematic miss errors

ContributionsIn conjunction with Bohn-Gettler & Rapp (2011), our study

demonstrates that mood clearly influences the processes and products of text comprehension

Whether mood effects will impact comprehension activity depends on the level of detail required

• Both moods promote memory of important details (Bohn-Gettler & Rapp, 2011)

• No difference in surface-level questions

Negative mood can be beneficial when required to understand main ideas and select best answer

ImplicationsNegative mood can perform better on tasks that require

understanding ideas and attention to detail

While mood clearly influences reading comprehension, different tasks, texts, and circumstances play a role in determining whether positive or negative mood may be more beneficial

Future work can identify those situations and investigate similar effects on texts on different subjects

Questions?Thank you to:

My advisor, Sidney D’Mello

Colleagues in the Emotive Computing Lab