2 METHODOLOGY. 2.1 Sampling. 2.2 Instrument of the Research

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84

Comparison between Boys and Girls Students'

Memory after Subliminal Negative and Positive

Mood Induction

Abstract— According to the previous studies in cognitive psychology, positive & negative mood affect function of memory. This research is aimed to determine effect of subliminal positive and negative mood induction on the function of boy and girl students’ memory. The subjects were randomly selected from psychology and microbiology students. They were in Islamic azad university of Iran. They were divided into four groups. 48 students (28 girls) were induced by subliminal negative mood and 47students (37girls) were induced by subliminal positive mood and after that their memories measured by Wechsler memory scale. The results showed that there is a significant difference between memory scores in subliminal positive and negative induction ( t=4/88, df = 33,P<0.001). There is a significant difference between the recalling scores of the female psychology students and the recalling scores of the female microbiology students who were induced by subliminal negative mood (t=2.68 , df = 26 , P<0.013). The findings showed that subliminal mood induction affects function of the girls' memory but subliminal mood induction did not affect function of the boys' memory.

Index Terms— Subliminal Mood Induction, Positive Mood, Negative Mood, Wechsler Memory Scale.

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1 I

MOTION affects all aspects of human life. Emotion induc-es negative and positive mood so it affects behaviors and cognitive functions especially the memory.

Positive mood means happy mood and negative mood means depressed and sad mood. All behaviors and the events that happen in human life, affect it positively or negatively accord-ing to attitude to them. The mood is induced in two forms: 1) Subliminal (at the consciousness level) induced by movies, pictures and music.

2) Subliminal (at the unconsciousness level) induced by pic-tures.

Today, Psychoanalyses are interested in studing the sublimi-nal induction that refers to unconsciousness.

subliminal perception doesn't refer to the conscious knowledge and it can not be described. If a stimulus passes an individual's objective limen but doesn't pass his / her subjec-tive limen it can be said that subliminal perception will hap-pen [1].

Weinberger showed that if a message is subliminally sent and the subjects don't aware of it consciously, it can has Therapeu-tic achievements. They showed the sentence "My husband and me live well" on a slide to the subjects by video for 6 millisec-onds [2]. They appearing Immediately after that picture of a woman in a garden to the subjects for 2 milliseconds. This method was run for some weeks. These researcher concluded that After running this method the couple's relation ship im-proved.

Baron and Byrne Showed that classical conditioning is done at the lower level of consciousness that refers to the situation that individual doesn't aware of the stimuli which are the base of

this kind of conditioning [3]. In a research, they showed an unknown man's pictures to the subjects. The pictures had tak-en whtak-en he was buying something from a supermarket or he was walking in the apartment. At the same time, some other pictures were shown to the subjects for a short time. The pic-tures excited their positive or negative feelings. The time was so short that the subjects didn't a ware of show into them. Some pictures which exited the negative feelings were shown to one other group. For example, a picture of open surgery of the heart, a wolf – like person's picture and pictures of terrible accidents. then the subjects were asked to say their attitudes to the unknown man's picture. The results indicated that alt-hough the subjects didn't aware of the pictures, the stimuli affect significantly their attitude to the unknown man. The subjects were shown positive pictures in comparison with the subjects were shown negative pictures ha more positive atti-tude to the man.

It can be concluded that the attitudes are affected by sublimi-nal conditioning or conditioning without conscious awareness. Mutabi et al. researched about the effect of depressed mood induction on the depressed patients and normal persons 90 subjects were divided into 3 groups. The first group had rienced returning phase of depression, the second group expe-rienced depression for the first time and the third group was-n't clinical. They graded subjects amount of sadness in a scale of measuring emotion in each groups. The findings showed that only the third group, normal participants sad mood was increased after mood induction because the other groups themselves had high sad mood but if mood induction which once made depressed mood was repeated, it might make de-pression [4].

The other researches made subliminal positive and happy mood induction by showing pictures of grassy areas, Raining, happy children's picture etc. also positive and happy mood induction using music can decrease depressed mood in

expe-E

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 Department of Psychology, Isfahan Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran.

 Department of Psychology, Isfahan Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran. E-mail: [email protected]

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85 rienced depression for the first time [5].

Some theories are on the effect of personality on the pro-cessing emotion.

Hasan shahi and goodarzi studied on the effect of Mood on the function of memory. They selected 3groups: participants with depression, students without depression symptoms and control group. One time positive and happy mood and the other time negative and sad mood were induced the subject. The positive and negative words induced them by a monitor of computer. The subjects listened to the sad or happy music with headphone accompany by watching the words. Accord-ing to the results the highest score of remembrance of negative word refers to the depressed individuals. It can be concluded that emotion affects the memory. Control group remembered negative words more than positive words. It refered to the principle of general effect of negative bias of memory.

Isen showed that if subjects succeed in computer plays, they will remember more the words which refer to positive person-ality features[6]. Teas dale and Russell retested Isen's findings by a way of mood induction[7]. They depressed subjects re-membered the words which refer to negative personality fea-tures more than the positive words. Their results in the case of positive personality features are similar to Isen's results. Her-tel and Hardin showed that mood and emotions may pro-cessing of information and memory[8]. Depression disorgan-izes the cognition so it decreases the subjective (Mental) re-sources and individual strength to do daily works. Depressed individuals and people who have sad mood can not easily focus on their abilities, successes, and can not adjust the nor-mal problems of life. They are easily vulnerable, low self – confidence and excitable to hopeless stimuli.

Depressed mood and depression disorganize concentration and make memory disorders that result in learning strength to be disordered. Wingartner et.al believe that mood changes quality of coding the events, searching memory, decision for correlation and relations[9]. According to studies depressed individuals information processing and cognitive processes more than healty individuals. Stoltenberg believe that there is a significant relation between mood and information pro-cessing of words that positive moods affect propro-cessing of in-formation positively and it can improvement of learning[10]. There are some researches about positive and happy mood and its effective influences. Feridrecson showed that happi-ness increases individual's cognitive–behavioral repertoire; in contrast, depression decreases them[11]. Ruhani and Abutale-bi showed that mood induction increases the staff's happiness of the organization[12]. The subjects were divided into four groups. The first group was affected by the sentences. The second group was affected by the positive imagery. The third group was affected by making happy faces. The methods were taught to the subjects. The fourth one was control group. The oxford happiness inventory was used to measure the staff's happiness. According to the results, the three groups amount of happiness were induced by positive sentences, positive im-aginary and making happy face in comparison with control group was significantly increased. Then the method of mood induction can be used in the organizations to improve their

staffs' memory, and cognitive activities.

Rafiee panah, Falah, Ashtiyani, Tabatabayi researched about the effect of different moods on the idiotropic and brief psy-chotherapy individual's systolic blood pressure. In proportion to their base blood pressure in the manner of positive mood is decreased more than its amount in the manner of negative mood[13]. The variables weren’t changed in extravert and nervous individuals. This method of mood induction can be used to improve individual health. Some researchers showed that personality features that are related to mood conditions affect suitably emotional elective processing of infor-mation[14]¸[15].

2

M

2.1 Sampling

Statistical population was the students of psychology and mi-crobiology who are 18-30 years old. The students were in Naein Islamic Azad University in the first semester of 91-22. The subjects divided into four groups. A group was 25 people (Psychology, negative mood induction), B group was 25 peo-ple (psychology positive mood induction) C group was 23 people (microbiology, negative mood induction) and the D group was 22 people (microbiology, positive mood induc-tion) A and B group were psychology students and C and D group were microbiology students.

The subjects of each group induced separately but all of sub-jects saw vision memory pictures of Wechsler memory scale before induction. The subjects just took this direction that you have to pay attention to these pictures. After that all of the groups were induced. Firs group was A group. They were psychology students and they induced. They saw sad faces of the children less than one second. The subjects did not under-stand from these pictures consciously. After research they told we did not understand what we see after induction. The sub-jects had to recall pictures of Wechsler memory scale in re-calling step. They had to recall and draw them in sheet of pa-per. Before recalling step the subjects did not get any direction that you have to memorize these pictures just they had to pay attention to them. This method did on each group same as A group but positive induction groups like B group and D group saw happy faces pictures of children instead of sad faces pic-tures.

2.2 Instrument of the Research

1) Goldberg and Hiller introduced GHQ in 1979[16]. GHQ is used in the clinics to recognize mental problems. GHQ Con-tains a collection of questions that refer to the lowest levels of sickness common symptoms in the case of different mental disorders. The healthy of individuals discriminate by it. The aim of using this instrument is the discrimination of mental disorders and mental healthy. GHQ contains 28 questions and 4 subscales. 1) The scale of physical symptoms 2) stress symp-toms and sleep disorders (stress and sleep disorders) 3) Social function 4) depression symptoms. The numbers 1-7 refer to physical symptoms, 8-14 refer to stress symptoms and sleep disorder, 15-21 refer to social function and 22-28 measure

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86 pression symptoms.

In Likret method, the scores are in form of (3,2,1,0) . It means that from right to left the first option gets zero, the sec-ond option gets one, the third option gets two and the fourth option gets three. So the minimal score maybe zero and major-ity score maybe 84. The correlation between four subscales and its total scale are noted in the following: Correlation be-tween A and B equal to 0.58, A and C 0.52, A and D 0.33, B and C 0.57, B and D 0.61 , C and D 0.44 , A and total scale 0.72, B and total scale 0.9, C and total scale 0.75 and D and total scale 0.63.

Validity and reliability of the mental healthy test: Sensitivi-ty and ProperSensitivi-ty are two ValidiSensitivi-ty index of the Screening inven-tories. In the analysis of the properties of a screening test we can get Validity index by the amount of success of the test in the discrimination between sick and healthy individuals. Also the evaluation index of the sensitivity of screening test de-pends on the amount of success of the test in discrimination between sick a healthy individuals [16]. More than 70 re-searches have been done about the validity of GHQ test in the word.

In a research about the validity of GHQ the subjects were 625 Citizens who lived in the city or rural areas. It is reported that the sensitivity and property of the scale is the best score of the cut – off and are orderly 84.7% and 93.7%[17].

2) Beck Depression Test: This instrument is important to recognizing of the clinical intervention so many psychometrics researches have been done about its psychometrics properties. The most important of the researches is about paraanalysis that was done by Beck et.al in 1988.

According to the results, validity coefficient of the test by the use of retest method on the basis of interval between times of performance and kind of the subjects was 0.48-0.86.

In other research in 1996 which was done by Beck et.al, the validity coefficient of the test was 0.93 after one week.

The correlation mean of Beck depression inventory with scale of Hamilton, depression Scale MMPI, and SCL are more than 0.6. Mohammad khani Showed that the reliability

coeffi-cient of BDI in Iran is 0.78 and validity coefficoeffi-cient for each twenty one questions is 0.913[18].

3) Wechsler memory scale: It is a screening cerebral dys-function test and it discriminates healthy individuals from individuals who suffer from cerebral dysfunction [19]. The Visual memory subscale of the revised Wechsler clinical memory scale that was used in this research evaluate basic dimensions of memory function in the young and adults. Also the test is used as a screening diagnostic instrument for the general neurological examination [20].

It was showed that it can be simply used in discrimination of organic and functional disorders in the case of feasible memory. After the first Wechsler inventory (inventory I and II), the revised Wechsler clinical memory inventory was pub-lished by Stone et.al quotation from Lezak [21].

The revisions were included in the following:

- providing of classified norms according to the age group - Replacement of the MQ score (memory quotient) with five synthetic indexes

- Increasing of subtests of measurement of figural and spa-tial memory

- Increasing of delayed remembering measurements - Revision of the calculation score method for some subtests to improve the attention of scoring (Wechsler 1945)

Standardization of this test was done in Tehran.

According to the analysis of the reliability of the scale scores by retesting on 266 people of the total number of the subjects, the reliability coefficients of the subtests were 0.62 – 0.84 , it was showed that the mean of reliability coefficients among the age groups for the subtests synthesizes were 0.41 – 0.9 [22].

3 F

In table (1) it can be seen that Female students of the psychol-ogy who were induced by subliminal negative and positive mood.

TABLE1

RECALL SCORES MEAN ,STANDARD DEVIATION AND STANDARD ERROR MEAN OF THE FEMALE SUBJECTS OF THE PSYCHOLOGY WHO

WERE INDUCED BY THE SUBLIMINAL POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE MOOD

Groups N Recall score

mean Standard deviation Standard mean error

subliminal negative mood 14 2.5 1.225 0.327

subliminal positive mood 21 7.14 3.395 0.741

There is a significant difference between the remembering scores mean of the psychology female students who were in-duced by the subliminal positive and negative mood (t=4.88,

df = 33, p<0.0.01).

TABLE2

REMEMBERING SCORES,MEAN,STANDARD DEVIATION AND STANDARD ERROR MEAN OF PSYCHOLOGY AND MICROBIOLOGY FEMALE

STUDENTS WHO WERE INDUCED BY THE SUBLIMINAL NEGATIVE MOOD

Groups N Recall score

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subliminal negative mood 14 2.5 1.225 0.327

subliminal negative mood 14 5.43 3.897 7.042

In table (2) it is shown that Female students of the psychology who were induced by subliminal negative mood.

Also there is a significant difference between recall scores mean of the psychology and microbiology female students who were induced the subliminal negative mood. (t=2.68, df =26, p<0.013).

Finally in table (3) you can see Female students of the micro-biology who were induced by positive and negative mood. - There is not a significant difference between the microbiolo-gy female students. Who induced by the subliminal positive and negative mood (t=0.37, df = 28 , p<0.712).

TABLE3

THE REMEMBERING SCORES MEAN,STANDARD DEVIATION AND STANDARD ERROR MEAN OF THE MICROBIOLOGY FEMALE STUDENTS WHO

WERE INDUCED BY SUBLIMINAL NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE MOOD

Groups N Recall score

mean Standard deviation Standard mean error

subliminal positive

mood. 16 5.94 3.568 0.892

subliminal negative

mood 14 5.43 3.897 7.042

4 D

According to the results, there is statistically significant dif-ference between recalling the subliminal negative and positive mood induction. The subliminal negative mood affect nega-tively the memory function. The results of this research is the some as the results of the researches were done by Ha-sanshahi[23], and Hertel and Hardin [8]. It is showed that negative mood induction affect negatively and the positive mood induction affect positively the recalling scores. Also the depressed clinical individuals remembered negative words more than the non clinical individuals[23].

Hertel and Hardin showed that the emotions may affects the processing of the information and memory[8]. They be-lieve that memory and learning are greatly affected by the depression. Disorganizes the cognition and decreases the sub-jective

(mental) resources so the individual strength to do daily works will be decreased. A depressed and sad individual can hardly focus on her/his abilities and successes. He/She can not adjust normally.

Problems of life, easily disturbed and have low self – confi-dence. He/She very irritable to the hopeless stimuli and don’t pay attrition to the happy stimuli. In this research, the sublim-inal negative mood induction affected greatly the students of the psychology. Because they work in the clinical places and contact with mental patients so thy will be affected by the sub-liminal negative mood induction more than the other.

According to the results of this research and other research-es, the negative mood decreases the memory function and cognitive activates and According to the findings of this re-search, there is a significant difference between the memory function in the students of the psychology who were induced by the subliminal negative mood and the memory function in the students of the psychology who were induced by the liminal positive mood so the student were induced by the

sub-liminal negative mood, their memory functioned worse. Also the external subliminal negative stimuli affect negatively indi-vidual cognitive functions and behavior especially the memory function even under unconsciousness conditions.

Today according to the environmental psychology which is a branch of psychology, the stimuli that individuals in a small place for example a house the stimuli for instance furniture, design the amount of light , the form of buildings an apart-ments an in a big place for example in the society, race differ-ences, nature, there other sad or happy traditional ceremony , population and the environment in which people live an their ancestors lived too affect individual behavior and function [24]. It is seemed that these stimuli are subliminal. The sublim-inal negative stimuli only affect little the behavior and cogni-tive function but a collection of them affect unconsciously the behavior an cognitive function in the period of time.

According to the statistics that was published in national Etemad newspaper in 1385, the highest level of suicide re-ferred to the humanities students specious psychology stu-dents (8.36%);

The level of suicide in the technical and engineering stu-dents is 3.43% and in the basic science which involve biology is 3.13%. Psychology students are at risk of suicide more than the other students.

The other finding of this research is that there is no signifi-cant difference between the recall function of the microbiology students who were induced by the subliminal positive and negative mood. Their function after the positive and negative mood is the same. The students of the microbiology works in the laboratory and contact with the organic an mineral materi-als, animal and biologic samples so they pay attention to the emotional. Affective stimuli and are induced by the subliminal mood less than the other students. The other finding of this research is that there is no significant difference between the remembering function of the male students who were induced by the subliminal positive and negative mood. The findings

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88 about the males and females are not the same because the fe-males are affective and are affected by the affective stimuli more that the males. The females are naturally affective. They are interested in the affective relationships more than the males. They are negatively induced by the negative moods like mourning , natural disasters, divorce, job failures etc more than the males. The males and females nature and social learn-ing make the difference. Previous researches showed that the females are psychologically vulnerable than the males in the natural disasters. The natural disasters make negative mood. The male are powerful than the females in the face of natural disasters. Individual nature and social learning's both result in the difference between the males and the females.

According to Bandura 's social learning theory, the individ-uals learn the behaviors by observing of the individual behav-ior. The males and females select the best sex model in the society by observing learning[25]. The female learns affection an the male learns rough and quarrelsome behaviors that both are necessary for the life by the replacement reinforcement. They learn their fellows behavior because it is enforced by the society. Also the mass media play a significant role in the peo-ple's learning. Many TV films show that the men's power an quarrel and the women's affection and bravery are social val-ues. These behavioral models were shown in the films. So the men learn to be patient with the problems and events which induce negative mood. And the women learn to be more affec-tive than the men when they face the problems and bad events. The women's characteristic affects their cognitive func-tions. Totally the females is more emotional that the male and are more affected by the emotions.

5 C

According to the above explanations, the negative and sub-liminal negative mood affect negative cognitive activities es-pecially the memory. The individuals who are unconsciously induced by the subliminal negative mood.

Educational curses affect individual sensitivity to bad which result in the negative mood. The individuals show study in the humanities courses especially in the psychology course especially in the Psychology course are disturbed by the bad events more than the other groups. Also the females are induced by the different moods especially the negative mood more than the males because they are more affective than the males.

A

The authors wish to thank Dr. Manoochehr Sattari and Dr.H. Khosh-akhlaq.

R

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