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Influence of emotional perception on achievements in mathematics
Dmitrieva, Elena*; Gelman, Viktor**; Zaitzeva, Kira*; Orlov, Alexandr*
*Sechenov Institute of Evolutionary Physiology and Biochemistry; **MedicalAcademy for Postgraduate Studies, St-Petersburg, Russia
Paper presented at the European Conference on Educational Research, University of Hamburg, 17-20 September 2003
Abstract
The paper describes, compares and analyses the factors associated with mathematical abilities of Russian school students by examining the cerebral mechanisms underlying students' emotional perception. Learning and creativity processes of an individual are known to be profoundly influenced by the emotion evoking qualities of a perceived stimulus. On the other hand, sensory perception of the individuals may reflect their cognitive abilities. Studies both in Western and non-Western cultures have indicated sex differences in cognitive abilities, which have peculiarities through age course. By examining age and sex differences in emotions perception in children with high and average abilities in mathematics we hope to reveal the influence of cerebral mechanisms underlying the emotional information processing on the achievements in Mathematics.
The present study investigates the possible differences in the development of the psycho- physiological mechanisms by comparing the accuracy of emotion recognition (AR), reaction times (RT) and cerebral lateralization (hemisphere asymmetry) in boys and girls of different ages. The sample consisted of students of 11 to 17 year old, mostly of middle socio- economic status in an urban context. 28 pupils from public school and 41 pupils from special school for mathematically gifted children participated in the study. The stimuli used as actual test items consisted of a sentence spoken in positive (happy) and negative (anger) emotional tones of voice and neutral tone of voice by the professional actor who regularly participated in radio and television productions. The task of the subject was to identify the emotional tone; the answer and the time of subject's reaction were registered in protocol by computer program.
The data obtained on recognition accuracy, time of reaction and school achievements in Mathematics were submitted to an analysis of variance (ANOVA General Factorial) and Linear Regression analysis (LRA). The connection of emotion recognition performance and mathematical competence of the children 11-17 years old has been found.
The ANOVA has shown that the AR and RT significantly depend on the factor of "subjects' type". Children with high mathematical competence showed higher AR and faster RT; they had more pronounced left hemisphere advantage for emotions perception as compared to control group. Consideration of the gifted children group has revealed the factors "sex", "age", "ability degree" and the "emotion valence" to be significant for the emotional recognition performance. The achievements in Mathematics in gifted children have been shown to depend on RT, the lateralization of emotions' perception (children with higher achievements in Mathematics have the tendency to less values of asymmetry coefficient that indicates the less pronounced cerebral lateralization). Gender has been shown to be an important factor that influences the achievements in Mathematics in all age groups, girls having poorer abilities as compared to boys of the same age. The results of the LRA allow predicting the connection of the "degree of mathematical abilities" with emotions' perception that varies depending on sex and age of the children.
INTRODUCTION
One of the purposes of mathematics education as a theoretical field is to account for the relation between teaching and learning of mathematics, to describe the process of the acquisition of mathematics. Since it is accepted that all mathematics education has its roots in the classroom it is essential to study the factors that influence the learning progress in mathematics as a school subject.
It was shown that while prior achievement had a dominant influence in the schooling process, other variables including parental expectations, motivation, and classroom context do contribute to the schooling process and can be a focal point for improving school success [Reynolds, 1991]. On the other hand, learning and creativity processes of an individual are known to be profoundly influenced by the emotion evoking qualities of a perceived stimulus. A fuller understanding of all forms of cognitive and affective behaviour must be dependent on expanding their empirical base, whether this is rooted in physiology, genetics, psychological processes or social conditions, or, as is more probable, in a complex mix of them all. Consequently the focus of the present research has been to examine differences in the ontogenetic peculiarities of psycho-physiological parameters of emotions’ perception in students with different competence in math in relation to their educational performance.
Such data from children, having different math abilities, should increase our understanding of the factors which influence the learning progress in mathematics as a school subject, as well as provide a better informed base on which to develop the teaching process further.
The emotional (affective) component of speech is of great importance both for human communication in general and for humans’ survival particularly [Gardner & Gardner, 1990; Goodall, 1986; Morozov, 1985; Perkins et al., 1991]. Before the appearance of the system expressing symbolic representations of the human world, humans already had a primitive system with which to signal their communicative needs essential to survival, such as anger, danger, grief, joy and the like. This nonlinguistic communication system, although refined by evolution, still exists and functions in both verbal and nonverbal acts to signal a person's feelings and basic intents. It is accepted that in ontogenesis the formation of higher cerebral functions depends on the more elementary processes being their bias, that is, the complex conceptions cannot develop without already existing sensorial perceptions including perception of speech emotional component [Vygotsky, 1956].Vygotsky in his works [Vygotsky, 1956] underlined that when we approach the problem of the aspects of mind, the first question that arises is that of intellect and affect. Their separation as subjects of study is a major weakness of traditional psychology.
On the other hand, sensory perception of the individuals may reflect their cognitive abilities [Galton, 1869]; so, children’s ability of speech emotional component perception might have some influence on the learning process.However, even nowadays the problem of the interrelation of emotional perception and academic achievements in school children is practically not considered. There are a few studies devoted to the connection of the individual’s emotionality and his intellect, but their data are not unequivocal [Druzhinin, 1995; Personality Psychology in Europe, 1993 and some oth.] and the inconsistencies in this literature suggest the importance of further investigation of the problem.
The primary purpose of this correlational study was to examine relations between emotional processing abilities and achievements in math in a random sample of students of Russian secondary schools (in St-Petersburg).
METHOD
SUBJECTS
The sample consisted of 28 children from the public school and 41 mathematically gifted children, mostly of middle socio-economic status in an urban context. This included 10- to 13-year-olds (n= 14 control +11 gifted), and 14- to 17-year- olds (n=14 control+30 gifted).The subjects met the following selection criteria: (a) they were right-handed according brief Edinburgh Handedness Inventory [Oldfield, 1971]; (b) with normal hearing on both ears. There were approximately equal numbers of girls and boys within each age level.
School progress in mathematics was obtained from the official school records (mathematics year grades of the students).The grade “3” corresponds to poor school progress; “4” – good; “5” – excellent achievements in pupils of public school. Grades from “6” to “8” correspond to achievements in children with high math abilities.
STIMULUS MATERIALS AND PROCEDURE
The stimuli used as actual test items consisted of a sentence spoken in positive (happy) and negative (anger) emotional tones of voice and neutral tone of voice by the professional actor who regularly participated in radio and television productions. The stimulus sentences were rated independently with 95-100% agreement by 8 judges to be discriminably happy, angry, and neutral in tone. The stimuli sentences were recorded on the hard disk of the computer where they were edited for length and volume. Each resulting stimulus sentence was approximately 2,7s in length and had approximately equal presentation volume. The 24 test signals were presented at random either on right or left ear of each subject through the headphones which were reversed to counteract any imbalance in the channels after each 24 trials.
Phrases were presented without noise background (signal/noise = 24dB) and at noisy conditions, white noise being played ipsilaterally at different signal-to-noise ratio levels. On the opposite ear white noise of the presentation volume equal to that of stimulus sentence was presented. The method along with the dichotic listening test is relevant for functional brain asymmetry (FBA) investigations [e.g., Hatta, Aetani, 1985, Hirano et al., 1997; Jancke et al., 2002]. The task of the subject was to identify the emotional tone and to push the button of the panel for the three variant responses of the subjects. The answer and the time of subject’s reaction were registered in protocol by computer program.
DATA ANALYSIS
The data obtained on recognition accuracy (AR), time of reaction (RT) and school achievements in Math were submitted to a mixed factorial analysis of variance (ANOVA General Factorial) and Linear Regression analysis (LRA), using the program package SPSS for Windows V. 11.0. The data analysis was conducted on the both subjects’ groups (control and mathematically gifted), and alone on control group and mathematically gifted one.T-test was used to assess the difference in AR and RT between subjects’ groups.
RESULTS
The factors “achievements in math”, “sex”, “age”, “ear of presentation”, “type of emotion” were processed by ANOVA for both AR and RT in order to assess their influence on the relationship between psycho-physiological features of emotion recognition and achievements in math. Significant “achievements in math” effect was obtained (in table: F=3.958, p=0.000 for AR and F=51.97, p=0.000for RT), showing the more pronounced influence of RT of emotion recognition on the achievements in math. In addition “achievements in math”* “age”,“achievements in math”* “sex”, “achievements in math”* “age”* “sex” interactions were revealed (table).
Table. The factors significant for accuracy and time of emotion recognition
AR / RTFactors / F / Sig. / F / Sig.
AGE / 4.95 / 0.026 / 248.57 / 0.000
SEX / 5.77 / 0.016 / 32.62 / 0.000
ACHIEVEMENTS / 3.96 / 0.000 / 51.97 / 0.000
EMOC / 95.31 / 0.000 / 198.17 / 0.000
AGE * SEX / 12.06 / 0.001 / 13.71 / 0.000
AGE * ACHIEVEMENTS / 8.10 / 0.000 / 47.79 / 0.000
SEX * ACHIEVEMENTS / 4.17 / 0.000 / 33.70 / 0.000
AGE * SEX * ACHIEVEMENTS / 11.51 / 0.000 / 14.87 / 0.000
ACHIEVEMENTS * EMOC / 1.59 / 0.055 / - / -
SEX * ACHIEVEMENTS * EMOC / 2.43 / 0.004 / - / -
Figure 1 presents “achievements in math” by “sex” interaction. Boys with high math abilities outperformed boys of control group: they revealed the shorter RT as compared to controls (p<0.05) and a tendency to the higher AR (p=0.065). Girls have no significant differences as compared to controls.
The sex differences in emotion recognition performance were shown to develop in age course. Connection of math abilities with sex and ontogenetic features in AR were revealed.
Boys of different ages and different math abilities have shown the decrease of AR in the senior children with poor math achievements.
Girls, on the contrary, have revealed the highest AR for the 14-15-year olds with average math achievements (grade “5”), the lowest AR for the younger children with poorachievements.
ANOVA conducted to assess the influence of headphone position (“ear of presentation” factor) on AR and RT in control and gifted groups of school students showed significant “ear of presentation”*”type of subject” interaction (F=5.873, p=0.015). This analysis indicated that control and gifted students showed a significant difference between left and right ear performance on affective component of speech, that is they had different degree of cerebral lateralization for emotional perception.
A lateralization degree (a coefficient of asymmetry Cas) for each subject was derived using the widespread formula [Repp, 1977]
Cas =(R-L)/(R+L)*100
,
where R (or L) is the number (or a percent) of stimuli identifications correctly reported from the right (or left) ear.
Using this index Cas values of less than 0 indicate left ear advantage (LEA) or right hemisphere (RH) preference in a given task,
- Cas values greater than 0 indicate right ear advantage (REA) or left hemisphere (LH) preference.
- Cas values of 0 indicate no ear difference.
Consideration of the gifted children group has revealed the factor «Coefficient of asymmetry» to be significant for the emotional recognition performance as well (fig.2,3).
The significant differences in Cas have been obtained both for the mathematically gifted and control boys and girls of 11-13 years old. For the 14-17-year olds the significant differences have been obtained only for boys and girls groups (fig.3). The Cas for mathematically gifted children was shown to decrease with the increase of the math abilities, the senior group having the lower Cas (fig.2).
Linear regression models were created for mathematics for 2 age groups (11-13 and 14-17 years old). 43 variables were taken for LRA as independent factors: for instance, total accuracy of emotions’ recognition and time of reaction, averaged (and in each session) recognition accuracy and reaction time of each emotional valence (negative,positive, neutral), index of cerebral lateralization, etc. Besides, the sex of the students and their progress in other school subjects were among the studied variables.
A model evaluating the weight of the main factors that influence the successful school achievements was constructed by backward stepwise method of LRA, “achievements in math” being dependent variable. The values of the determination coefficient (R2) showed that the model accurately approximated the experimental data. According to the LRA it was obtained that:
- for the group of 11-13 – year old mathematically gifted students
“achievements in math” = 0.049AR+0.109RT-0.213Sex-0.042
Cas;(1)
- for the group of 14-17 – year old mathematically gifted students
“achievements in math” = 0.026AR+0.048RT –0.380Sex –0.013
Cas.(2)
So, the results of LRA of the data obtained for the mathematically gifted children allow predicting the connection of the “achievements in math” factor with the parameters of emotions’ perception and sex of the children.
The standardized coefficients of the model have shown that the achievements in math significantly depend on the age of the students. Such parameters of emotional recognition performance as AR and degree of cerebral lateralization (Cas) and time of reaction for emotional recognition (RT) were shown to be more important for predicting math abilities in middle age group as compared to senior one, while sex of the students were more important for senior students’ group. On the whole, the achievements in math as being predicted by the LRA model are higher:
in boys than in girls;
in students having the longer RT and the higher AR;
in children with the decreasing Cas.
DISCUSSION
The main goal of the present study was to examine the factors, which influence the learning progress in mathematics as a school subject. Outside of the family, teachers have a significant emotional influence on the educational performance of children and it is important to study the correlation of students’ level of empathy with their school progress. Empathy is known to be “the outcome of cognitive and affective processes that operate conjointly” [Feshbach, 1987], but its influence on academic achievements in children of different ages within the normal school population remains to be investigated. The neurobiological foundations of behaviour generally are far from being precisely established although research has now significantly intensified in this area, particularlyin relation to cognitive processes [Coles, 1989; Shallice, 1988]. The neurophysiological processes are multidetermined and complex, and the issue of individual differences adds further complexity to this research area. Empathy and the regulation of emotional behaviour and the role of empathy in school progress are now the important questions within educational research [Dmitrieva, 2001;Feshbach, 1987; Maliphant, 2003]. As it is assumed in literature that one of the psychophysiological correlates of empathy is emotional hearing (empathy is positively correlated with the perception of speech emotional information [Morozov, 1985]) the present paper more specifically studies the children’s emotions recognition ability and interconnection of it with the academic achievements in mathematics.
Though the research was primarily concerned with the connection of psycho-physiological factors of speech emotions’ perception and mathematical abilities in control and gifted students, the ontogenetic features of this connection were revealed as well. Not only the main effect of “achievements in math” factor was observed for accuracy of recognition and time of reaction in both groups, but also it interacted significantly with both sex and age. The differences between gifted and control students groups in perception of affective speech component were more pronounced for the time of reaction (Table), children with high mathematical competence showing faster RT. The data on ontogenetic features of cerebral mechanisms of emotional perception revealed by highly significant “age” effect, especially for the RT (F=248.566, p=0.000), are consistent with the results of previous studies of emotions’ perception [Baltaxe, 1991; Brog, 1985; Dmitrieva et.al. 1988, 1999; Saxby, Bryden 1984; Scherer & Oshinski, 1977].
The significant interaction of factors “age”* “achievements in math” indicates that the importance of “age” factor in perception of emotions is different for gifted and control students. The effect of “age” for the RT of the former is higher (F = 248.57, p = .000) as compared to control group (F =4.95, p=.026) and shows that ontogenetic features of cerebral mechanisms of emotion recognition are more pronounced in mathematically gifted students.
The significant interaction of factors “sex”* “achievements in math” obtained for both groups is consistent with the results of studies both in Western and non-Western cultures which have indicated sex differences in cognitive abilities [Chrizman et al., 1991; Maccoby & Jaklin, 1974]. Gender differences were noted in linear regression analyses (Eq.1, 2): positive direct influence of sex (in favor of boys) was notable on math achievement growth, especially in 14-17-year old students. These data confirm the results obtained in other studies of sex differences in mathematics performance [Druzhinin, 1995; Gallagher et al., 2000; Hyde, Fennema & Lamon, 1990].
The factor “coefficient of asymmetry (Cas)” according to LRA is also among predictors of math performance scores and though its significance is not high these data provide qualified support for Geschwind N. and Galaburda’shypothesis of connection of specific laterality and giftedness [Geschwind & Galaburda, 1985] and are consistent with the results of other authors [Hassler & Birbaumer, 1988. Martino & Winner, 1995]. The decreasing values of the coefficient of asymmetry with the growth of math abilities (Fig. 2,3) obtained in the present research confirm the hypothesis that special ability in mathematics is associated with a reduction of lateralisation level in gifted students as compared to control sample [Annett & Kilshaw, 1982; Brog, 1985;Golubeva, 1993.Kraft, 1985].