Adult learners use fake smiles to hide their anxiety which consistently tricks AI into thinking they are enjoying themselves.
Masking smiles act as a social defense mechanism that hides intense stress during difficult tasks. AI facial recognition tools often interpret these grins as high engagement or positive emotion. Under the surface, these adults are actually experiencing a sympathetic storm of physiological panic. Their heart rates spike while their faces remain perfectly composed and pleasant. This social performance makes current emotion-tracking software fundamentally useless in high-pressure learning environments.
Immediate versus Delayed Corrective Feedback for Adult Learners: A Multimodal Investigation of Cognitive Load and Emotional Covariation
EdArXiv · 39p4k_v1
The timing of oral corrective feedback (CF) remains a debated issue in second language acquisition, with its underlying cognitive-emotional interaction long relegated to a "black box". To break this macro-level "black box", this study adopted a microgenetic perspective and conducted an in-depth, high-granularity investigation involving 10 adult learners (CEFR A2). By utilising a 60fps non-invasive tracking system, this study extracted over 11.48 million physiological and behavioural features, al