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May 30, 2008Sad Children Outperform Happy Children in Attention-to-Detail Tasks |
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From Ascribe Newsfeed: Psychologists at the University of Virginia and the University of Plymouth (United Kingdom) have conducted experimental research that contrasts with the belief that happy children are the best learners. The findings, which currently appear online in the journal Developmental Science, and will be printed in the June issue, show that where attention to detail is required, happy children may be at a disadvantage. The researchers conducted a series of experiments with different child age groups who had happy or sad moods induced with the aid of music (Mozart and Mahler) and selected video clips ("Jungle Book" and "The Lion King"). The findings in each experiment with both music and video clips were conclusive, with the children induced to feel a sad or neutral mood performing the task better than those induced to feel a happy state of mind. Lead researcher Simone Schnall of the University of Plymouth describes the psychology behind the findings: "Happiness indicates that things are going well, which leads to a global, top-down style of information processing. We provide direct, immediate access to mainstream national media for 600 colleges, universities, medical centers, public-policy groups and other leading nonprofit organizations. AScribe transmits news releases directly to newsroom computer systems and desktops of major media organizations via a supremely trusted channel - The Associated Press. We also feed news to major news retrieval database services, online publications and to developers of web sites and Intranets. And AScribe does it at a cost all organizations, large and small, can afford, a fraction of what corporate newswires charge.
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