Introduction:
The Council of Europe in CM/Rec(2022)1 Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe to Member States on the importance of multilingual and intercultural education for a democratic culture [1], highlights the positive impact of plurilingual and intercultural education on the personal and professional development of the individuals, equality, social integration, and the exercise of human rights. These values are based primarily on knowledge and respect for cultural and linguistic diversity, which are emphasized in plurilingual and intercultural education. This trend also positively affects learners' cognitive skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, attention and memory, which are influenced and regulated by emotions [2]. The aim of this study was to investigate how emotion and memory are linked in plurilingual undergraduate students studying at Jessenius Faculty of Medicine in Martin, Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia (JFM CU), with a particular focus on neurocognitive processes of vocabulary retention, short-term memory (STM) and long-term memory (LTM).

Materials and methods:
Thirty-six first- and second-year medical students aged 19 to 28 years from different cultural backgrounds participated in our research. Galvanic skin response (GSR) and oximeter were used to measure autonomic nervous system responses. All participants were instructed to memorize 10 Slovak and 10 English words which they had to recall and reproduce after a short break of 8 seconds, testing their STM. To test LTM, the experiment was repeated after one week. Changes in participants' skin conductance and pulse rate were monitored and recorded before, during, and after the word memorization tasks. A standardized PANAS (Positive and Negative Affect Schedule) questionnaire was used to assess the participants' emotional states. A two-sample t-test as well as Spearman's correlation test was used to analyze the results of the study.

Results:
The GSR device was used to measure emotional states in plurilingual undergraduates, with typical values in the relaxation phase ranging from 50 to 70. We found that the best cognitive retention of words was in the range 70 - 79 with the highest pulse. The students showed higher level of emotion during word reproduction in the first language (p<0.05), whether in English or Slovak. There was also statistically significant difference between the word recall success in both languages for STM and LTM. The PANAS questionnaire assessed positive affect in students (p<0.05). In order to better understand the emotional-cognitive processes, further research on brain activity in plurilingual learners is needed [3].

References:
[1] Council of Europe, CM/Rec(2022)1 https://search.coe.int/cm#{%22CoEIdentifier%22:[%220900001680a563ca%22],%22sort%22:[%22CoEValidationDate%20Descending%22]}
[2] Tyng, Chai M et al. “The Influences of Emotion on Learning and Memory.” Frontiers in psychology vol. 8 1454. 24 Aug. 2017, doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01454
[3] Fragkaki, M., et al. “Higher Education Teaching Transformation with Educational Neuroscience Practices.” ICERI2022 Proceedings, (2022): 579-584. doi: 10.21125/iceri.2022.0194

Keywords: Plurilingual undergraduates, vocabulary retention, galvanic skin response, emotion, cognitive processes, English for medical purposes.