We examined whether positive emotions interacted with task instructions and topic beliefs to influence processing and memory of a dual-position text. Participants provided emotion and belief ratings, were instructed to focus on one position in a dual-position text while reading silently (Experiment 1) or thinking-aloud (Experiment 2), and then…

Refutation texts are designed to facilitate the revision of inaccurate knowledge; however, studies have documented backfire effects wherein respondents become less accurate when exposed to a factual correction compared to another. Here, we explored whether epistemic emotions mediated knowledge revision or backfire processes when reading…

This study examined 57 learners' emotions (i.e., joy, anger, confusion, frustration) as they engaged with scientific content while learning about microbiology with Crystal Island, a game-based learning environment (GBLE). Measures of learners' prior knowledge, in-game text comprehension, facial expressions of emotion, and posttest reading…

A large body of research has outlined how mental models are formed by comprehending texts, yet relatively less work has been conducted in the field of comprehending artworks. Trans-symbolic comprehension (TSC) processes have been theorized to partially account for how mental models are formed across media. The current study tested whether…

The present experiment explored the independent effects of refutations and summaries to prevent student misunderstandings when learning from an introductory psychology text on cognitive dissonance. Explicitly presenting and refuting a common misconception about cognitive dissonance did not improve performance on comprehension questions that…

We investigated how affective states influence expository text comprehension and whether text valence moderates the effects (i.e., mood congruency). In Experiment 1 participants were randomly assigned to a happy or sad affective state (elicited via films) before reading a positive or negative version of a scientific text on animal adaptations.…

Stories have long been theorized to influence how we perceive our social world and our peers. Empirical research on this topic has begun to grow, with many studies exploring how stories and social cognition relate, across a range of different approaches. In order to structure past work and guide future investigations, this article presents a…

This study examined the role of need for closure and need for cognition in predicting second language (L2) writing-specific psychological factors, namely, self-efficacy, anxiety, motivation, and self-regulation. To do this, we collected self-report data from 186 undergraduate learners of English. Results of path analyses revealed that both need…

Using the same specialist terms in online discourse can indicate knowledge overlaps between partners. However, linguistic overlaps do not automatically ensure overlaps in conceptual representations. In particular, learning situations, which typically focus on knowledge acquisition, require a sufficient understanding of domain-specific concepts.…

This article demonstrates the potential of sound iconicity for automatic text analysis. This study claims that--at least in poetic language--the ratio of plosive versus nasal sounds in a text predicts its emotional tone as it is perceived by readers; that is, poems that have a relatively high frequency of plosive sounds are more likely to express…

The purpose of this study was to investigate why some individuals who read refutational text demonstrate conceptual change learning, whereas others do not. Middle school students were asked to complete a pretest, read a refutational text while thinking aloud, complete a posttest, and participate in an interview. The data were analyzed in two…

Three experiments show that, contrary to the current view, comprehenders do not unconditionally deactivate information marked by negation. Instead, they discard negated information when it is functionally motivated. In Experiment 1, comprehenders discarded negated concepts when cued by a topic shift to dampen recently processed information.…