Grammatical Choice and Affective Experience in a Second-Language Test

This study measured the affective experience of 12 subjects reading grammatically correct and incorrect versions of 50 sentences, Questionnaire I, in their second language (French). This was followed by a multiple choice grammar test, Questionnaire II, using the same 50 sentences and offering the correct and incorrect answers. Subjects tended to choose correct as well as incorrect responses corresponding to their highest affective rating within each entry. In all cases the subjects’ behavior was higher than chance level and thus followed a trend to maximize pleasure. This result supports the hypothesis according to which the key to decision-making lies in the affective dimension of conscious experience.