The influence of outcome status on the attending and memory of positive and negative feedback

Feedback provided by teachers or others is one of the most important factors in learning situation. Do people prefer to process and recall positive or negative feedback? Would the processing and memory of different feedback be affected by different outcome situations? These are the questions our research concerned. An experiment was conducted to examine the influence of outcome status (high score or low score) on the attending and memory of positive or negative feedback. The measurement of Mental Health was used to give a bogus score to manipulate the outcome status. We used an eye-tracking system to record the viewing time of feedback, and then asked the participants to recall and recognize the feedback. Overall, the results show that (a) participants would view negative feedback longer and recognize better than positive feedback so the resolution model was supported, and (b) outcome status would not influence the processing and recall of feedback because participants would view or recognize more of negative feedback regardless of high or low score outcome situations . Implications of psychological theory and practice are discussed.