Investigation of sadness on brain mathematical ability using Musical and Semantical Excitation

Background and Aim : Sadness is an emotional pain that happens based on loss, loneliness, and hopelessness. The importance of detecting the relation between emotion and computational ability is considered as one of the main issues in psychology. A study was carried out by the scientists of Malaysia University to make secondary students able to figure out the relationship between emotional intelligence and the students mathematical ability.Methods : Fifteen subjects (eight females, seven males; mean age of twenty years old) participated voluntarily and written informed consent was obtained from all the subjects. Subjects were divided into two different groups: the control group and the stimulation one. During the test, the stimulation group was asked to close their eyes for one minute. During this period, a sad instrumental piece of music was presented to them in an in-ear headphone. After that, a sad text and a series of sad images were shown to them. After being stimulated, they were asked to do a simple mathematical test while the music was being played on their headphones, and this method was repeated two more times. The control group was asked to do the same test without the images being shown to them. The accuracy of their answers was calculated as the outcome of the test. Summation of the number of False and No-Answered questions was exerted as the performance metric. An independent t-test method was conducted for statistical analyzing of the data.Results : The results of independent t-test revealed significant increase in the metric of the participants in the stimulation group (mean =9.25; STD = 5.87) compared to control group (mean = 3.57; STD = 2.43) as shown in Figure 1. The p-Value of the T-test was about 0.0336, which shows that the original hypothesis about the effect of sadness on mathematical ability is completely true.Conclusion : Based on the results of this study, it can be declared that sad emotion is indeed capable of affecting computational ability. This achievement can be used as the start of neuroscientific research and clinical treatments.

Keywords:

Brain mathematical ability , Emotional Intelligence , Computational Ability , Sadness