"Colorful words" about emotional interference (with pronunciation learning)

Clip art: Clker

Several recent posts have alluded to the importance of cognitive-affective balance in learning and memory. In this 2011 Science Daily summary of research by Hummer, Kronenberger, Mosier, Mathews, and Wang of Indiana University, reporting the effect of playing violent video games on control of emotion, it was demonstrated (not surprisingly) that the brains of subjects at least temporarily were "reset" to have significantly lower executive function over emotional responsiveness.

Interestingly, the instrument employed, an emotional interference test, used varying intensity and hue of color on key words in the visual field related to the game structures--along with fMRI technology--to study that effect. (I have got to get ahold of the word/color set of protocols, similar to that in another related study on depression!)

Of course, we can't simply alter activity of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex or dorsal anterior cingulate mechanically or electronically . . . (See, however, earlier posts on Neurotherapy.), but there are any number of body-based and attentional focus techniques, like the color protocols in the study, that can to some extent keep the learner more "in the game," so to speak and enhance memory and access processes. What is important is that we are beginning to "see" (through fMRI examination) how that happens in daily life and in the classroom. It is more and more potentially within our control . . .