The effects of funny and serious task content and expectations of fun versus importance on children's cognitive performance

The effects of funny and serious task content andexpectations of fun versus importance on children’scognitive performanceajpy_14 154..162

David Nguyen,1 Nenagh Kemp,1 and Stephen C. Want2

1School of Psychology, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, and 2Department of Psychology, RyersonUniversity, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

ABSTRACT

This study investigated how children’s performance on a cognitive task was influenced by funny and serious task content, and by funor important instructions. Eighty-four children in Grades 1 and 5 performed two versions of a paired-associates word-learning task,which paired nonsense words with novel definitions and illustrations. All children completed a version in which the definitions andillustrations were funny, and a version in which they were not, with either fun or important instructions. Results revealedsignificantly better performance on the funny than on the serious version, but only when the funny version was presented first. Therewere no significant effects of task instructions. The findings confirm that making children’s cognitive tasks funnier can enhance taskperformance. Although there were no effects of expectations as created by task instructions, the enhancing effect of funny contentwas influenced by children’s expectations as created by their prior experience with the task.

Key words: children, learning, task content, task instructions

The present article concerns some of the factors, other than

ability or competence, that may influence children’s perfor-

mance on cognitive tasks. Specifically, the article reports an

investigation into how children’s perceptions of cognitive

tasks on two dimensions, fun and importance, affect how

well they perform. It seems intuitive that children are likely

to be highly motivated, and thus likely to perform well,

when engaged in tasks that are perceived as high in fun

(such as when playing a game) as well as in tasks that are

perceived as high in importance (such as completing school

assessments). The aim of the present study was to investigate

the impact of perceptions of fun and importance on chil-

dren’s task performance in two ways; first, by attempting to

directly manipulate the content of a task to produce a funny

versus a serious version of the task, and second, by empha-

sising either the fun or important nature of the task when

introducing it to the children. Based on existing literature,

both simple and interactive effects of these manipulations

were anticipated, as outlined below.

THE EFFECT OF ‘FUN’ CONTENT ON CHILDREN’SCOGNITIVE TASK PERFORMANCE

The extent to which children find an activity to be fun has

been shown to have a powerful influence on their motiva-

tion and performance, and enjoyable tasks have usually

been found to have a positive effect on learning (Cordova &

Lepper, 1996; Joussemet, Koestner, Lekes, & Houlfort, 2004;

Lepper & Cordova, 1992; Lepper & Gilovich, 1982; Malone

& Lepper, 1987). For example, children in Grades 3 to 5 have

demonstrated increased retention of key material and more

successful problem-solving when presented with tasks that

include novel embellishments (e.g., presenting a point on a

graph as a ‘baby mouse’) or tasks that have been situated in

a fantasy context (e.g., presenting a problem as a detective

case that the child must solve) (Lepper & Cordova, 1992;

Parker & Lepper, 1992). More generally, many cognitive

tasks developed for use with children incorporate elements

designed to make the tasks more enjoyable and game-like, to

engage children’s attention, and encourage their participa-

tion. For example, classic studies of children’s understanding

of conservation of number (e.g., McGarrigle & Donaldson,

1975) and of false beliefs (e.g., Wimmer & Perner, 1983)

make use of toys such as teddy bears and dolls, which pre-

sumably help to create the feeling that the task is more

of a game than a test, and help to motivate the child to

participate.

Correspondence: Nenagh Kemp, DPhil, University of Tasmania, Psy-chology, Locked Bag 30, Hobart, TAS 7000, Australia. Email:[email protected]

Received 26 October 2009. Accepted for publication 17 August2010.© 2011 The Australian Psychological Society

Australian Journal of Psychology 2011; 63: 154–162doi:10.1111/j.1742-9536.2011.00014.x

There are a variety of reasons why children may excel in

tasks they find fun. For example, a child having fun on a task

may be experiencing ‘flow’: the inherent enjoyment in being

totally immersed in activity, marked by focused attention

and a lack of self-awareness, which are conducive to optimal

performance (Csikszentmihalyi, 1988). Children may also

perform better because they are experiencing positive affect,

which has been shown to enhance aspects of cognitive func-

tioning such as creative problem solving (e.g., Estrada, Isen,

& Young, 1994), memory recall of neutral and positive mate-

rial (Nasby & Yando, 1982), verbal fluency (Greene & Noice,

1988), and strategy use in decision-making tasks (Isen,

Rosenzweig, & Young, 1991). Fun tasks may also simply be

more personally interesting to children. Children who dem-

onstrate individual interest in a particular task or topic pay

closer attention, persist for longer periods of time, learn

more, and find more enjoyment than those who display less

individual interest (see Hidi, 2001; Renninger & Wozniak,

1985).

Although a variety of evidence exists to suggest that

making a task more enjoyable can improve children’s per-

formance, it is difficult to find or generate a satisfactory

definition of what qualifies as ‘fun’. As described above,

children can be encouraged to find a task more enjoyable

through a range of techniques, such as by incorporating the

use of toys, presenting the task in a fantasy context, or

including elements which are personally interesting to indi-

vidual children. In the present study, we attempted to make

the task more fun/enjoyable by incorporating ideas and pic-

tures that had been rated as funny, and by contrasting these

with ideas and pictures that had been rated as more serious,

or not funny. The first aim was thus to replicate previous

findings that children perform more successfully on tasks

that involve content that is perceived as fun (here, by using

amusing materials), compared to tasks that are less fun

(here, by using materials that are not amusing). To our

knowledge, this study is the first to attempt to demonstrate

a beneficial effect of fun on performance specifically through

the use of humorous task content, as opposed to task content

made more enjoyable through the use of toys, or through

being presented in a game-like setting.

THE EFFECT OF ‘FUN’ INSTRUCTIONS ON CHILDREN’SCOGNITIVE TASK PERFORMANCE

Aside from manipulating the actual task content, adults

often also attempt to alter children’s perceptions of how

much fun a task will be by simply leading children to expect

that the task will indeed be fun. For instance, in an attempt

to motivate a child to participate, a developmental

researcher might introduce a cognitive task as a game,

implicitly suggesting that it will be fun. The subtasks within

formal intelligence tests for children, for example, are com-

monly framed as fun activities. When children are tested on

the block design task in the McCarthy Scales, they are asked

to ‘play with the blocks’ (McCarthy, 1972, p. 55). In the

Stanford Binet Intelligence Scales, the examiner is advised to

build rapport with younger children by calling the tasks ‘a

series of games with some fun tasks’ (Roid, 2003, p. 41). In

the Weschler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence,

children who appear disengaged are told that there will soon

be ‘games that are lots of fun’ in order to arouse their

curiosity (Wechsler, 2004, p. 47).

Similarly, it is not uncommon for developmental psy-

chologists to present other tests of children’s cognitive abili-

ties as ‘fun’ or as ‘games’ when introducing those tests to

child participants. For instance, the dimensional change card

sort task, which requires children to sort cards according to

shape or colour, is typically described to children as the

‘colour’ or ‘shape game’ (Frye, Zelazo, & Palfai, 1995;

Halford, Bunch, & McCredden, 2007; Marcovitch,

Boseovski, & Knapp, 2007; Oh & Lewis, 2008). Other

examples are not hard to find; a reader browsing recent

literature on child development will find that tasks assessing

abilities as diverse as memory (Schwenck, Bjorklund, &

Schneider, 2007; Shin, Bjorklund, & Beck, 2007), stra-

tegic reasoning (Carroll, Apperly, & Riggs, 2007), decision-

making (Beck, Robinson, & Freeth, 2008), and map use

(Shusterman, Lee, & Spelke, 2008), have all been introduced

to children as games. In addition, tasks designed to assess

children’s understanding of physical causality are often

described as ‘toys’ (Schulz, Gopnik, & Glymour, 2007) that

children will ‘play’ with (Frye et al., 1995).

There may be good reasons to attempt to persuade chil-

dren that a task they are about to perform will be fun. In

addition to increasing motivation, framing a task as a fun

game may help children to avoid adopting performance

goals (Dweck & Leggett, 1988), and instead focus on enjoy-

ing the task for its own sake. When a situation emphasises

the need for performance, individuals are likely to adopt

performance goals, both immediately, and in the longer term

(Elliott & Dweck, 1988). This can lead to shallow learning

and greater vulnerability to negative affect, such as perfor-

mance anxiety and effort withdrawal (Anderman & Maehr,

1994; Elliot & McGregor, 2001).

However, while motivation may (at least initially) be

encouraged through such task framing, the effect of suggest-

ing that a task will be fun may ultimately depend on

whether the task is actually fun or not. Recent research with

adults suggests that describing a cognitive task as fun may

not be the best strategy for optimising performance if the

task is actually perceived as relatively serious or tedious.

Bianco, Higgins, and Klem (2003) investigated the impact on

adults’ performance of mismatches between instructions

that framed a task as fun or important, and adults’ implicit

Funny and serious task content and children’s cognitive performance 155

© 2011 The Australian Psychological Society

theories of the task as fun or important. In the first of three

studies, college students were asked to rank a list of activities

according to the degree to which they considered the activity

to be fun and/or important. ‘Financial duties’ was the activ-

ity rated as most important, while ‘dating games’ were rated

as most fun. Bianco et al. then found that adults performed

better at a computer task with a dating game theme when

the task instructions framed the task as fun, rather than

important. When the same computer task was presented

with a financial duties theme, performance was significantly

better when the task instructions framed the task as impor-

tant, instead of fun. The authors explained their findings in

terms of self-regulatory theory: A regulatory ‘fit’ between an

adult’s implicit theory of a task and the framing of that task

leads to increased motivation and subsequent performance

compared to when there is no fit. Bianco et al.’s findings

thus suggest that when adults implicitly believe a task is fun,

they will perform better when they are instructed that it is

fun, rather than important. Conversely, when adults do not

think of a task as fun, they perform better when the instruc-

tions emphasise importance instead.

If Bianco et al.’s (2003) findings with adults also apply to

children, then framing a children’s cognitive test as fun

would optimise children’s performance when children actu-

ally think of that test as a fun activity. However, when

children actually view a cognitive test as a serious or

mundane activity, then performance may suffer if they are

initially led to expect that it will be fun. This possibility could

have significant implications for testing in developmental

and educational psychology. Specifically, children’s abilities

in test-like tasks may be underestimated if tasks are framed

as games. Conversely, children’s performance on game-like

tasks could similarly be underestimated if these tasks are

framed as tests.

Evidence from two studies conducted in the 1970s pro-

vides conflicting conclusions about the effects of task

instructions on children’s performance, and the potential

interactions between task instructions and task content.

Strang, Bridgeman, and Carrico (1974) found that children

in Grade 3 performed significantly better on three non-

verbal subtests of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Chil-

dren (WISC; picture completion, picture arrangement, and

object assembly) when told that they would be playing a

game, compared to when told that they would be taking a

test. However, as these three subtests all have game-like

elements (e.g., the use of cartoon pictures and puzzle

pieces), the ‘game’ instructions may have conferred the

performance benefits of regulatory fit. In contrast, Bridge-

man, Strang, and Buttram (1974) found no performance

benefit for Grade 3 children in introducing two verbal

(information and similarities) and two non-verbal subtests

of the WISC (picture arrangement and object assembly) as

games. However, these same authors found that Grade 6

children did better with ‘test’ than with ‘game’ instructions

on the two verbal subtests. As the verbal subtests are argu-

ably more test-like (involving stating facts about, and con-

ceptual similarities between, named items), it is possible

that ‘game’ instructions did not fit as well with the task

content, leading to relatively poorer performance with

these instructions. However, it is unclear why this finding

held only for children in Grade 6, and why the benefit of

‘game’ instructions for non-verbal subtests was not repli-

cated in this study. There do not appear to have been any

more recent studies that have investigated the interactive

effects of task instructions and task content with children in

this way.

The present study investigated the effects of funny and

serious task content, and fun and important task framing, on

children’s performance on a paired-associates word-learning

task. In this task, a series of nonsense words were each

associated with a novel definition and an accompanying

illustration, and the child’s task was to learn those associa-

tions. This task was chosen because it could be easily modi-

fied to be more or less funny, and was assumed to be one

that children would find relatively neutral in intrinsic impor-

tance. The task content was presented in two forms that had

been rated by a separate group of children as either funny or

serious (‘not funny’), and the task instructions were

manipulated to frame the task as either fun or important. To

investigate changes related to age or to school experience,

children in Grade 1 and in Grade 5 were assessed. Children

in the first grade of Australian government schools, the

group tested here, have not typically been exposed to

explicit testing in the classroom. By Grade 5, children have

had more experience with tests, for example, of spelling lists,

or times tables. Because Grade 1 children may not have yet

developed a clear understanding of the difference between a

game and a test as presented at school, compared to their

older counterparts, it is hypothesised that any effects of

instructions, or interaction of instructions with task content,

will be confined to children in Grade 5.

The main aims of this study were thus twofold: (1) to

replicate previous findings demonstrating that fun (defined

here as funny) task content facilitates performance com-

pared to more serious (defined here as not funny) content,

and (2) to investigate whether Bianco et al.’s findings, that

task instructions interact with task content, also apply to

young children. The following specific hypotheses were

proposed:

Hypothesis 1: Making the content of a task funny will

result in better performance than when the same task is

given with serious content.

Hypothesis 2: For children in Grade 5, but not in Grade 1,

the effect of task instructions will interact with task

content, such that:

156 N. Kemp et al.


Hypothesis 2a: When a task involves funny content,

instructing children that it will be fun will result in better

performance than instructing them that it is important.

Hypothesis 2b: When a task involves serious content,

instructing children that it is important will result in better

performance than instructing them that it will be fun.

METHOD

Study 1—Pretest

Before the effects of task content on performance could be

tested, it was first necessary to identify content for the

paired-associates task that children would consider to be

either funny or serious. The goal of this pretesting was

therefore to identify funny and serious word definitions

and illustrations for use in the main tests of our hypotheses.

Participants

Thirteen postgraduate students and academic staff volun-

teered to help with the initial item selection. In addition, 35

Grade 1 children (mean age 7 years, 0 months) and 36 Grade

5 children (mean age 11 years, 0 months) were recruited

from two primary schools in southeastern Australia with

school permission and parental consent. All had English as a

first language.

Materials and procedure

Adult participants were asked to individually rate a set of

110 written definitions as ‘funny’, ‘not funny’, or ‘unde-

cided’. Definitions rated with less than 75% consensus as

either funny or not funny were discarded. Coupled with

representative illustrations, the remaining definitions were

rated by child participants and were subsequently ranked

according to the proportion of children who rated them as

funny or not funny. The top 12 funny nouns (e.g., a bunch of

blue bananas) and top 12 funny verbs (e.g., sleeping on a

panda) and the top 12 not funny (i.e., least funny) nouns

(e.g., a basket of dirty clothes) and top 12 not funny verbs (e.g.,

returning a library book) were retained for use in the main

test. The mean percentage of children rating the selected

‘funny’ sentences as funny was 81.1 (standard deviation

(SD) 6.30) in Grade 1 and 84.9 (SD 7.54) in Grade 5, and the

mean percentage of children rating the selected ‘not funny’

sentences as not funny was 77.3 (SD 13.1) in Grade 1 and

94.9 (SD 3.84) in Grade 5.

Definitions were then paired with nonsense words taken

or derived from the online ARC Nonword Database (Rastle,

Harrington, & Coltheart, 2002). Each nonsense word

assigned to a funny definition (e.g., sweg) differed by one

phoneme from a nonsense word assigned to the serious

definition (e.g., swog), and inflectional endings (-ing and -s)

were added if necessary.

Study 2—Main study

Participants

Forty-one children in Grade 1 (mean age 7 years, 3 months;

SD 4 months) and 43 in Grade 5 (mean age 11 years, 3

months; SD 4 months) were recruited from two primary

schools in southeastern Australia with school and parental

consent. A further three Grade 1 and six Grade 5 children

participated, but their results were omitted from the analysis

for being incomplete or because the children paid insuffi-

cient attention to the task. None of these children had par-

ticipated in Study 1. All participants had English as a first

language, and all were judged by their teachers to have

sufficient reading ability to participate in the task.

The paired-associates task

The paired-associate word-learning task required partici-

pants to learn nonsense words with novel definitions and

pictures by first viewing a set of training cards, each consist-

ing of a nonsense word (e.g., swog), its associated definition

(e.g., a tree that grows socks), and an illustration (e.g., a picture

of a tree with socks growing from its branches). During the

presentation of each training card, the experimenter read

out the card’s nonsense word and its definition, and asked

the child to repeat the nonsense word to ensure that he or

she had attended to it. This training phase was followed by

presenting participants with a set of testing cards, one at a

time, each of which contained one of the definitions and its

accompanying illustration from the testing phase, and asking

children to match the definition and illustration with the

appropriate nonsense word. The target word was presented

within a 2-by-2 array of nonsense words, all of which had

appeared during the training phase, and all of which were of

the same word type (e.g., singular nouns, or present con-

tinuous verbs). The child’s task was to point to, or say, the

matching nonsense word.

Two versions of the task were created, each with 24 non-

sense words paired with 24 novel definitions and illustra-

tions. The funny task used the definitions rated as most

funny during pretesting, while the serious task used the

definitions rated as most ‘not funny’ (least funny) during

pretesting.

Procedure

Each participant performed both the funny and serious ver-

sions of the task, in two sessions, approximately 1 week



apart. Pilot testing suggested that requiring children to learn

24 nonsense word/definition pairs in a row provided a suit-

able challenge for Grade 5 children, but was too difficult for

Grade 1 children. Therefore, to avoid unnecessary difficulty

and distress, within each session, the Grade 1 children were

trained and then tested with two separate sets of 12 cards.

The Grade 5 children were presented with all 24 learning

cards, followed by all 24 testing cards in a single set.

Testing cards were organised so as to minimise differences

between grades in terms of how often the items had been

seen in the training phase. Each testing card contained the

target nonsense word plus three distracters of the same word

type (e.g., all -ing verbs). For the Grade 1 children, two

distracters were taken from the previous training set of 12

nonsense words, and the third was taken randomly from the

other training set of 12. Thus, in the first testing set of 12,

Grade 1 children had previously seen two of every three

distracters in the training phase, and in the second testing

set, they had previously seen all three during training.

Because Grade 5 children were trained on all 24 nonsense

words before being tested, these older children had seen all

three distracters by the time they completed the testing

phase.

Session 1. Participants were individually assessed by an

experimenter in a quiet school area. Each child was ran-

domly assigned to either the fun or important instruction

condition. The fun instructions introduced the task as a fun

game: We’re trying to find out which words are fun to learn so that

we can make a fun game for children at other schools. Today we’re

going to play a game where you’ll learn some funny new words and

what they mean. Remember, because this is a game, the main thing

is for you to try and have fun so we can see which words are fun to

learn. In contrast, the important instructions introduced the

task as an important test: We’re trying to find out which words

children are good at learning so we can help other children at other

schools. Today you’ll be doing an important test where you’ll learn

some new words and what they mean. Remember, because this is a

test, it’s important to try your best so we can help children from

other schools.

Children were then randomly assigned to receive either

the funny or the serious version of the task for the first

session. After giving the instructions, the experimenter

explained the task and presented a practice trial. Children

were then briefly reminded of their task-framing instruc-

tions before proceeding to the learning phase. To reduce

the reading demands of the task, the experimenter read

out each nonsense word and its definition in the training

phase, and the child was asked to repeat the word. In the

testing phase, the experimenter read out each of the four

nonsense words on each test card before asking the child to

point to or say which one he or she believed to be the

correct word.

Session 2. Session 2 was conducted approximately 1 week

after Session 1, with the same procedure and the same

experimenter. Children who had seen the funny version of

the task in Session 1 now saw the serious version, and vice

versa. At the beginning of their second session, participants

were retold the same task-framing instructions that they had

heard in their first session.

RESULTS

Task results

The number of non-words correctly paired with definitions

and their illustrations on the paired-associates task was

recorded for each participant, for each session, out of a

maximum score of 24 per session. These means (Ms) and SDs

are shown in Table 1.

The data were analysed with a mixed analysis of variance

(ANOVA) with one within-subjects factor of task type (funny

task vs serious task), and three between-subjects factors:

Grade (1 vs 5), instruction type (fun vs important) and order

(funny task first vs serious task first).

There was no significant difference in performance

between Grade 1 children and Grade 5 children, which sug-

gests that the two administration methods resulted in similar

levels of task difficulty. The ANOVA yielded a significant

main effect for task type, F(1, 76) = 8.97, p < .01, partial

h2 = 0.11, where the funny task was performed significantly

better than the serious task. Thus, Hypothesis 1 was sup-

ported. Although the mean performance was slightly better

for children given instructions emphasising importance

compared to those given instructions emphasising fun, the

main effect of instruction type did not achieve significance,

F(1, 76) = 1.13, n.s., nor did the interaction between instruc-

tion type, task type, and Grade F(1, 76) = 0.53, n.s. There-

fore, Hypotheses 2a and 2b were not supported. The only

other significant effect to emerge was a task type-order

Table 1 Mean performances on the funny and serious task giventhe instruction type and grade (standard deviations in parentheses)

Task InstructionsGrade 1 Grade 5 TotalM (SD) M (SD) M (SD)

Funny Fun 9.30 (3.90)(n = 19)

10.27 (2.43)(n = 22)

9.81 (3.16)(n = 41)

Important 9.43 (3.54)(n = 22)

10.86 (3.74)(n = 21)

10.16 (3.68)(n = 43)

Total 9.37 (3.62) 10.57 (3.14) 9.99 (3.41)

Serious Fun 8.55 (3.28)(n = 19)

8.14 (2.27)(n = 22)

8.33 (2.77)(n = 41)

Important 8.81 (3.23)(n = 22)

9.68 (3.56)(n = 21)

9.26 (3.40)(n = 43)

Total 8.68 (3.22) 8.91 (3.06) 8.80 (3.12)

Maximum score = 24.

158 N. Kemp et al.


interaction, F(1, 76) = 6.61, p < .05, partial h2 = 0.08. As

shown in Fig. 1, this indicates that the extent to which the

funny task was performed better than the serious task was

larger when participants experienced the funny task in

Session 1 followed by the serious task in Session 2, as com-

pared to the reverse order. Post hoc Newman–Keuls tests on

this interaction revealed that the funny task was performed

significantly better than the serious task, p < .01, but only

when the funny task was performed first (order 1), not

second (order 2). It also revealed that the funny task was

performed significantly better in order 1 than in order 2,

p < .05, but that performance on the serious task did not

differ significantly between the two orders.

DISCUSSION

This study aimed to investigate children’s performance on a

cognitive task with funny or serious content, and to see if

this performance was influenced by whether children were

instructed that the task was a fun game or an important test.

As hypothesised (Hypothesis 1), children performed signifi-

cantly better on the funny task than the serious task,

although this effect was qualified by an interaction with the

order in which the tasks were presented. The funny task was

completed more successfully than the serious task only

when the funny task was completed first; when the serious

task was completed first, there was no difference in perfor-

mance between the two versions. The greater success dem-

onstrated on the funny task is consistent with a variety of

literature highlighting the performance benefits of making

tasks more enjoyable (e.g., Cordova & Lepper, 1996;

Joussemet et al., 2004; Lepper & Gilovich, 1982; Malone &

Lepper, 1987; Parker & Lepper, 1992). However, the order

effect was an unexpected and novel finding. Our hypotheses

2a and 2b stated that performance would depend on the fit,

or lack thereof, between the type of task and the type of

instructions given. However, the results showed that neither

Grade 1 nor Grade 5 children’s performance differed signifi-

cantly according to the instructions they received, regardless

of task content. We now discuss each of these findings.

The effect of funny versus serious content in thepresent study

The first question to be addressed concerns the reasons why

children performed better on the funny task than on the

serious task, at least when the funny task was performed

first. It might be argued that the humorous definitions pre-

sented in the funny task involved more distinctive concepts

and images than the more prosaic definitions from the

serious version, and that this distinctiveness may have fos-

tered greater memory for the humorous definitions.

However, effects of distinctiveness on recall are typically

only found in mixed sets of to-be-remembered items, where

some items are distinctive and others are more mundane,

and not when separate sets of all-distinctive or all-mundane

items are used, as in the present study (Waddill & McDaniel,

1998). Instead, one alternative possibility is that the funny

task was more attractive to children’s individual interests

which, according to interest theory, would translate to an

intrinsic motivation involving increased task persistence and

effort (Hidi, 2001; Hidi & Harackiewicz, 2000). Interest is

likely to have played an additional role in focusing attention

and freeing up cognitive resources to be used in learning the

paired associations (Hidi, 1990, 2001; Renninger & Wozniak,

1985). Children’s superior performance on the funny task

could also have been facilitated by their experience of posi-

tive affect, which has been shown to stimulate working

memory, a function crucial for learning (Ashby, Isen, &

Turken, 1999).

Why then did this advantage not appear when the serious

version of the paired-associates task was presented first?

Expectancy-value theories of motivation argue that chil-

dren’s previous unpleasant experiences with a task can

diminish subsequent performance (Eccles & Wigfield, 2002).

This could explain why the funny task was performed sig-

nificantly better only in the first, and not in the second

session, as children may have lost interest in, and the poten-

tial to enjoy, the funny version after experiencing the less

interesting serious version. Alternatively, children’s rela-

tively poor performance on the funny task when it was

presented second could reflect a lack of fit between the

children’s expectations, created by their first experience with

the serious task, and the content of the funny version that

they subsequently experienced. Specifically, the children’s

first experience with the unamusing (serious) version of the

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

Order 1 - Funny/not funny Order 2 - Not funny/funny

Mea

n nu

mbe

r of

cor

rect

res

pons

es

= Funny task

= Serious task

Figure 1 Children’s performance on funny and serious taskaccording to task order (order 1, n = 40, order 2, n = 44).



task may have created an expectation that their second

experience with the task (the funny version) would also be

unamusing. When the second task turned out to be

amusing, the lack of fit between expectations and the actual

task may have caused performance to suffer. This would be

a similar effect to that found in adults by Bianco et al.

(2003), except that here, the lack of fit was between prior

experience and task content, rather than task framing and

task content. This explanation could also account for the fact

that children’s performance on the serious task when it was

presented second was lower (albeit not significantly so) than

when it was presented first. Having first been presented with

the funny task, those children who completed the serious

task second may have had an inconsistent expectation; they

may have expected the second version of the task to also be

funny, and this inconsistent expectation may have decreased

their performance, relative to those who experienced the

serious version of the task first.

Whatever the reason for the order effect, this study pro-

vides important confirmatory evidence that children’s per-

formance on cognitive tasks can be significantly improved

simply by making the content fun, compared to making it

relatively serious. Moreover, this study is the first to dem-

onstrate this effect with ‘fun’ defined in terms of humour. In

this task, the performance difference occurred even though

the two versions of the task should have been equally diffi-

cult, as they differed only in the funniness ratings of their

definitions. The other important finding is that in within-

subjects designs, the order in which amusing and unamusing

tasks are presented can alter the relative advantage con-

ferred by amusing task content, which may have important

implications for the cognitive testing of children. In particu-

lar, if children are to be presented with a series of tasks,

presenting them with serious tasks before other, more enjoy-

able, tasks may hinder performance on those subsequent

tasks.

The effect of fun versus important task framing in thepresent study

This study was partly motivated by Bianco et al.’s (2003)

findings in adults of an effect on performance of regulatory

fit: Adults performed better on a task they found to be fun

when they received instructions framing the task as fun,

instead of important, and better on a serious task when

instructions framed it as important, rather than fun. As

previously mentioned, if a similar effect operates in children,

then this could have important implications for the interpre-

tation of children’s performance on a range of standard and

experimental cognitive tests, which are often introduced as

‘games’, but which may not be perceived as game-like by the

children themselves. However, Bianco et al.’s finding was

not replicated in the present study, as instruction type did

not significantly affect children’s performance, nor did it

interact with the type of task that was presented.

One possibility is that the instructions in the present study

were simply not made salient enough to the children to have

a significant impact on their performance. The instructions

were presented at the beginning of the task in each of the

two testing sessions, but it is possible that children may have

thought less about, or even forgotten, the instructions as the

task went on. In contrast, the nature of the task itself (funny

or serious), which did influence performance, was con-

stantly available, in that each new item was clearly funny or

serious. Future research on the effect of instructions on

children’s performance could usefully employ manipulation

checks to see whether or not children remember the content

of the instructions they are given.

In addition, we should be cautious in concluding from the

present study that task instructions do not affect perfor-

mance. The effects of instructions on task performance may

simply be smaller and more dependent on age than the

effects of task content on performance, making them harder

to demonstrate. Recall that the hypothesised effect of

instructions in the present study involved a three-way inter-

action between task type, instruction type, and age, which

our design may have had limited power to detect. In fact,

despite there being no statistically significant effects involv-

ing instruction type, there were some non-significant trends

in the present data consistent with ideas of the regulatory fit

between task type and instruction type. In particular, Grade

5 children’s performance was poorest in the condition where

they were given a serious task, but were instructed that it

would be fun. This is precisely the condition in which the

mismatch between instructions and task is greatest (or in

other words, the condition where the regulatory fit is

weakest); whereas the funny task could conceivably be per-

ceived as either fun or important, it is unlikely that the

children perceived the serious version as fun. Framing the

serious task as fun may have had some small (but in this case

non-significant) detrimental effect on older children’s per-

formance. Therefore, despite there being no statistically sig-

nificant effects of task instructions in the present study,

continued attention to the effects of mismatches between

instructions and task type seems warranted.

In addition, in the present study there was also a non-

significant trend for better performance in general when

children were given instructions emphasising importance,

rather than fun. Given the verbal nature of the task used in

the present study, this trend is somewhat consistent with

Bridgeman et al. (1974) who found that describing verbal

tasks as important tests (rather than fun games) improved

the performance of Grade 6 children. Therefore, it may

be prudent for researchers administering verbal tasks that

rely on children’s knowledge (as in Bridgeman et al., 1974)

or memory (as in the present study) to describe them as

160 N. Kemp et al.


important tests, rather than fun games, especially if the

content of the tasks is relatively mundane.

Given these trends, future research should further test the

hypotheses generated here by employing a variety of cogni-

tive tasks (e.g., standardised cognitive tests, educational

computer games), using more strongly worded instructions,

and also including control instructions that emphasise

neither fun nor importance. If task framing can play a role in

shaping children’s perceptions of cognitive tasks, then it

would also be valuable to investigate whether task framing

affects children’s ongoing performance on activities which

are typically performed on a regular basis, such as learning

activities at school and sporting activities.

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APPENDIX

Funny and serious sentence contexts for non-words and non-word choices

Sentence Non-word type Non-word choices (target non-word in bold)

Funny sentencesFace painting with chocolate V-ing Pooting Bromping Glarping NurchingTo sit on a balloon til it pops V-to Frope Losh Creck PrishTo play Xbox for homework V-to Losh Creck Prish SlenchA tree that grows socks N-sing Swog Clab Climp DurpSleeping on a panda V-ing Bromping Glarping Fatching PootingA snail with a square shell N-sing Splob Durp Clab SwogClothes made out of paper N-plu Nirts Blags Pregs TonksTo swim in puddles V-to Creck Prish Ploch LoshIce cream with 50 scoops N-sing Clab Durp Swog TranchKoalas that like wearing pants N-plu Nogs Pregs Blags NirtsTurning your teacher into a chicken V-ing Glarping Rarting Pooting BrompingChairs that like to dance N-plu Blags Nirts Pregs FlinksTo make a snowman of mud V-to Slench Plock Prish FropeShoes for dogs N-plu Flinks Tonks Pregs NogsRonald McDonald’s underwear N-plu Climp Tranch Splob DurpWearing undies on the outside V-ing Fatching Nurching Rarting GlarpingNecklaces made of spaghetti N-plu Blags Nogs Flinks TonksTo watch TV upside down V-to Plock Slench Frope LoshPlaying frisbee with pizza V-ing Rarting Bromping Nurching FatchingA snake with polka dots N-sing Swog Climp Tranch SplobEarmuffs made of muffins N-plu Nogs Flinks Tonks NirtsPutting marshmallows between your toes V-ing Pooting Fatching Nurching RartingA bunch of blue bananas N-sing Clab Splob Tranch ClimpTo ride a cow to school V-to Creck Frope Plock Slench

Serious sentencesFolding up your own clothes V-ing Lishing Blarping Crocking PooningA brown and blue jumper N-sing Nug Sweg Clob PrigA small grey building N-sing Sweg Clob Nug GlonkSweeping the floor V-ing Lishing Pooning Blarping SlenchingA few empty tissue boxes N-plu Fonks Blegs Mirts DarpsBooks with no pictures N-plu Mirts Darps Splabs BlegsA bike with flat tyres N-sing Clob Nug Trinch SwegWalking to school V-ing Blarping Narting Pooning LishingScratched DVDs N-plu Blegs Mirts Darps ClempsTo set the table V-to Trimp Narch Prash BropeTo eat vegetables for dinner V-to Narch Prash Brope PlackTo have one hand in your pocket V-to Fitch Brope Narch PrashA TV that does not work N-sing Glonk Prig Nug TrinchDoing the dishes V-ing Blarping Narting Crocking SlanchingA basket of dirty clothes N-sing Sweg Trinch Glonk PrigMaking your parents’ bed V-ing Narting Crocking Slanching LishingTo return a library book V-to Plack Trimp Brope FitchWashing your own clothes V-ing Slanching Pooning Narting CrockingPiles of cracked plates N-plu Fonks Mirts Splabs ClempsTo turn off a leaky tap V-to Narch Fitch Trimp PlackScrunched-up paper bags N-plu Blegs Splabs Clemps FonksSome old dirty socks N-plu Clemps Fonks Darps SplabsTo pick up rubbish in the yard V-to Prash Plack Fitch TrimpA broken watch on the ground N-sing Trinch Clob Prig Glonk

Note. V, verb (in to or ing form), N, noun (in singular (sing) or plural (plu) form).

162 N. Kemp et al.


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The effects of funny and serious task content and expectations of fun versus importance on children's cognitive performance