{"title":"Mood affects attention in knowledge-free reasoning task, not scores","authors":"Paulo G. Laurence , Elizeu Coutinho Macedo","doi":"10.1016/j.lmot.2025.102099","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Recent research disputes the idea that acute stress affects academic performance when prior knowledge is controlled, challenging the interference hypothesis. However, the impact of mood on cognitive performance in knowledge-free tests, such as matrix reasoning tasks, remains unclear. This study examines the effects of positive and negative mood inductions on matrix reasoning performance, focusing on behavioral and eye movement measures. Experiment 1 confirmed effective mood induction, with the negative valence group showing increased stress. Experiment 2 found that while mood induction did not affect overall performance, it influenced attention allocation. Participants in the positive valence group displayed a less structured scanpath than those in the negative valence group. These results question the interference hypothesis, suggesting that stress does not impair performance in knowledge-free tasks and highlight the importance of attention allocation in educational assessment contexts.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47305,"journal":{"name":"Learning and Motivation","volume":"89 ","pages":"Article 102099"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8000,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Learning and Motivation","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0023969025000062","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2025/1/29 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, BIOLOGICAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Recent research disputes the idea that acute stress affects academic performance when prior knowledge is controlled, challenging the interference hypothesis. However, the impact of mood on cognitive performance in knowledge-free tests, such as matrix reasoning tasks, remains unclear. This study examines the effects of positive and negative mood inductions on matrix reasoning performance, focusing on behavioral and eye movement measures. Experiment 1 confirmed effective mood induction, with the negative valence group showing increased stress. Experiment 2 found that while mood induction did not affect overall performance, it influenced attention allocation. Participants in the positive valence group displayed a less structured scanpath than those in the negative valence group. These results question the interference hypothesis, suggesting that stress does not impair performance in knowledge-free tasks and highlight the importance of attention allocation in educational assessment contexts.
期刊介绍：
Learning and Motivation features original experimental research devoted to the analysis of basic phenomena and mechanisms of learning, memory, and motivation. These studies, involving either animal or human subjects, examine behavioral, biological, and evolutionary influences on the learning and motivation processes, and often report on an integrated series of experiments that advance knowledge in this field. Theoretical papers and shorter reports are also considered.
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