ABSTRACT
This chapter examines research evidence, demonstrating that children have shown better motivation and improved outcomes on cognitive measures such as memory, attention, and categorization in the presence of animals. It discusses possible psychophysiological mechanisms for these effects. Object categorization is a cognitive task in which one must group objects together based on their perceptual or functional characteristics. Level of student engagement in cognitive processes, and ultimate performance of all learning-related tasks, are often impacted by the level of executive function (EF) skills and motivation. Recently, motivational theory has been associated with AAI. Olbrich asserted that the presence of animals may enhance implicit motives and increase the congruence between implicit and explicit motives or goals in performance and learning situations. There is no systematic research on age-dependent effects of animals in children, but research on adults suggests that there may be a biological correlate of the effects of animals on children's cognitive processes.
