Effect of emotional induction by music on the production of nominal and verbal agreements: A study on primary-school children

This paper studies the effect of an emotional induction by music on the grammatical spelling performances of primary-school pupils (fourth and fifth graders). According to Ellis and Moore’s model (1999), positive or negative emotion should impact an individual’s cognitive performance by diverting a part of his or her attentional resources. The act of spelling relies upon various types of processes requiring more or less attentional resources. As such, the emotional effect should differ according to the attentional cost of the agreement to be made and the skill level of the writer. Results reveal a negative impact of negative emotional induction on grammatical spelling performances. This effect varies depending on both agreement type (nominal vs. verbal) and the subject’s spelling skills.