ABSTRACT
We investigated the effects of pleasurable and unpleasurable messages on the learning of timing using a ten-key pressing task. The messages affected the participants’ emotions and provided them with knowledge of the results (KR). A total of 42 university students participated in this experiment. They were divided into three groups: the pleasurable message group (PMG), the unpleasurable message group (UMG), and the control group (CG). Participants were required to 1) press “2”, “4”, “8”, and “6” in order on the ten-key pad, 2) finish within 1100 ms of pressing “2”, and 3) press with relative time intervals of 22.2%, 44.4%, and 33.3%. All groups were provided with the following KR after every practice trial: total time and relative time intervals. Participants in the PMG and UMG groups were provided with pleasurable or unpleasurable messages, respectively, if their total times were within ±5% of the range, or when any of their time intervals fell outside of ±10% of the range. Three pretest trials, 30 practice trials, and three posttest trials were performed on Day 1. Three retention trials and 3 transfer trials were performed on Day 2. The transfer trials total time was 1800 ms, and that of the relative time interval was the same as on Day 1. The results indicate that although all groups learned the timing task, the UMG had higher variable and root mean square errors on the transfer test compared to the PMG and CG. These results suggest that unpleasurable messages are disadvantageous for learning stable timing during the ten-key pressing task because unpleasurable emotions may negatively affect cognitive processing.