The impact of emotional arousal on learning in virtual environments

Abstract

Research on animals has shown that injections of adrenalin paired with a learning experience improved memory retention. Adrenalin is a key hormone in emotional arousal and fight or flight responses. It stands to reason that emotional arousal (in moderation) may also have a positive impact on human learning. The purpose of this thesis was to investigate the impact of emotional arousal on learning in virtual environments. An experiment was conducted to observe learning differences in a low-arousal condition and a high-arousal condition. A first-person shooter videogame (America's Army: Operations) was used as the virtual environment. In the low-arousal condition, participants wandered peacefully through a scenario memorizing objects they encountered. High-arousal participants wandered through the same environment, but were required to fight through the scenario while under attack. Results indicated that individuals in the high-arousal condition performed better on recall tasks immediately following the exposure and also 24 hours later.