The role of emotional reactivity in the comprehension of online multiple texts

Multiple text-comprehension relies on a coherent mental representation based on content integration of various texts about a topic (Bråten et al. 2014; Stadler & Bromme, 2013). With respect to the Kintsch (1998) model of single-text comprehension, the “documents model” (Britt & Rouet, 2012; Rouet & Britt, 2011) includes the additional layer of the intertext model, which involves the representation of information about the sources, that is, author, type of document, purposes, date of publication, etc. Person-related factors were examined in the literature on multiple-text comprehension, mostly cognitive factors, such as prior knowledge (Bråten & Strømsø, 2010; Bråten et al., 2013), argumentative reasoning (Mason, Ariasi, & Boldrin, 2011), and epistemic beliefs (Kammerer et al., 2013). Recently, theories of intelligence (Braasch et al., 2014), individual interest (Bråten et al., 2014), and reading self-efficacy (Bråten et al., 2013) were also examined as motivational factors. What is unknown in this field is the role of emotions (Pekrun & Linnenbrink-Garcia, 2014). In the present study we investigated emotional reactivity as an individual tendency to respond with different intensity to emotional materials (Davidson, 1998). When studying emotions two basic components should be considered: valence and arousal. Valence concerns the degree of pleasantness of students’ response to an emotional stimulus. Arousal regards the intensity of the emotional activation (Pekrun & Perry, 2014). While the former can be easily measured through self-reports of affective states (Crawford & Henry, 2004), arousal is measured at physiological level (Mauss & Robinson, 2009). In this regard, to extend current knowledge, we measured electrodermal activity in response to an emotional material as an index of arousal and sympathetic activation (Boucsein, 2012; Kreibig & Gendolla, 2014). Skin conductance level (SCL) is an electrodermal measure based on the activity of sweat glands that are innervated solely by the sympathetic nervous system. SCL can be collected in a non-intrusive way in school settings. Objectives of the study were the answers to the following research questions (RQ): (1) Can students be grouped according to reliably distinct profiles of emotional response to a negative school-related stimulus in terms of arousal and valence? (2) Do profiles of emotional reactivity differentiate multiple-text comprehension when controlling for potentially interfering factors? For RQ1 we expected that at least two profiles of overall response would emerge when considering physiological reactions and self-perception of emotional states. For RQ2, we expected that the profiles of emotional reactivity would differentiate deeper comprehension at the intertext level. More reactive students would show poorer multiple-text comprehension than less reactive peers. This is because the latter requires extra elaborative processing of the information while more cognitive resources may not be available when individuals tend to become easily hyper-aroused and in a negative affective state.