The Influence Of Emotional Valence On New Vocabulary Learning In A Virtual Reality Environmen

In the rapidly developing society,where more than half of the world’s population can communicate in two or more languages,mastering multiple languages has become an important advantage.Word learning has received much attention as the first step to mastering a language.Word learning,as a social behavior,should take place in a more realistic social environment.And virtual reality technology can provide a more realistic and socially immersive environment.The Cognitive Affective Model of Immersive Learning suggests that cognition and emotion are two important factors that influence immersive learning.Current researchers have mainly focused on cognitive factors,while there is a lack of research on emotional factors.The present study focused on the effect of emotion on novel word learning in an immersion environment,and instead of using context to provide emotion to word,it was provided through tone as a more social and interactive way.This study consisted of two experiments,of which,Experiment 1 focused on the effect of emotional valence on the recognition of novel words in a virtual reality environment.Experiment 1 was divided into two phases,including a learning phase and a testing phase.The learning phase was conducted in a virtual reality environment,in which participants had to perform 24 German words,8 of which were learned in a positive context,8 in a negative context,and 8 in a neutral context.The participants listened to the corresponding German pronunciation by controlling the handle by clicking on 3D objects in the virtual reality environment,while the emotional context of the novel words was controlled by different speech sounds.During the testing phase,participants were required to perform a four-alternative forced choice(4AFC)task based on word recognition,and their behavioral and EEG data were recorded while performing the test task.A total of 33 participants were recruited for the study,and the behavioral results showed that the reaction times for positive context words were significantly shorter than those for negative context words.Through further analysis of the EEG data,we found an effect of emotional valence on novel word recognition at both the N1,N2,and LPC time windows.Experiment 2 focused on the effect of emotional valence on the recall of novel words in a virtual reality environment.The experiment is also divided into two phases,including a learning phase and a testing phase.The learning phase is the same as Experiment 1,which uses virtual reality technology for learning.In the test phase,a picture naming task based on word recall was used,and the same behavioral and EEG data were recorded from the subjects.Study 2 recruited a total of 31 participants,and through data analysis,it was found that emotional valence had a certain impact on both N2 and LPC components at the EEG level,suggesting a potential aspect of emotional potency on new word recall.In conclusion,this study focused on the effect of emotional valence on novel word learning in a virtual reality environment and on the different processing of emotional information,expecting to provide methods and strategies for foreign language learning in adults,to provide behavioral and neurocognitive evidence for CAMIL theory,and to enrich the research related to immersion learning.