Depressive symptoms bias the prediction-error enhancement of memory towards negative events in reinforcement learning
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Rationale Depression is a disorder characterized by sustained negative affect and blunted positive affect, suggesting potential abnormalities in reward learning and its interaction with episodic memory. Objectives This study investigated how reward prediction errors experienced during learning modulate memory for rewarding events in individuals with depressive and non-depressive symptoms. Methods Across three experiments, participants learned the average values of two scene categories in two learning contexts. Each learning context had either high or low outcome variance, allowing us to test the effects of small and large prediction errors on learning and memory. Participants were later tested for their memory of trial-unique scenes that appeared alongside outcomes. We compared learning and memory performance of individuals with self-reported depressive symptoms (N = 101) to those without (N = 184). Results Although there were no overall differences in reward learning between the depressive and non-depressive group, depression severity within the depressive group predicted greater error in estimating the values of the scene categories. Similarly, there were no overall differences in memory performance. However, in depressive participants, negative prediction errors enhanced episodic memory more so than did positive prediction errors, and vice versa for non-depressive participants who showed a larger effect of positive prediction errors on memory. These results reflected differences in memory both within group and across groups. Conclusions Individuals with self-reported depressive symptoms showed relatively intact reinforcement learning, but demonstrated a bias for encoding events that accompanied surprising negative outcomes versus surprising positive ones. We discuss a potential neural mechanism supporting these effects, which may underlie or contribute to the excessive negative affect observed in depression.
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Individuals with depression often display emotionally biased prediction-error processing, characterized by attenuated reward prediction-error signals and heightened sensitivity to punishment- or risk-related prediction errors.
“Individuals with depression often display emotionally biased prediction-error processing, characterized by attenuated reward prediction-error signals and heightened sensitivity to punishment- or risk-related prediction errors (Kumar et al., 2018; Rouhani and Niv, 2019).”
From Listen to your inner body: embodied emotions in predictive neuroscience and traditional East Asian medicine (2026) · cites this paper as Rouhani and Niv, 2019
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
A predictive coding framework for understanding major depression
Gilbert, J. R., Wusinich, C., & Zarate, C. A. (2022) · Frontiers in Human Neuroscience · doi:10.3389/fnhum.2022.787495 · Cited by 38 · see citing works
Lee, S., Yoon, S.-I., Liao, H.-Y., Kim, J. W., Lee, I.-S., & Chae, Y. (2026) · Frontiers in Human Neuroscience · doi:10.3389/fnhum.2026.1807034
- Authors
- Rouhani, N., & Niv, Y.
- Affiliations
- Princeton University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Rouhani, Nina
- Venue
- Psychopharmacology
- Published
- 2019-07-26
- Volume
- 236
- Issue
- 8
- Pages
- 2425-2435
- ISSN
- 0033-3158 (ISSN-L)
- 1432-2072
- PMC
- PMC6697578
- OpenAlex
- W2966747958
- Cited by
- 47
- References
- 7
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 14 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 4 · 2018: 1
- FWCI
- 2.33
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Psychopharmacology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH098861)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory Processes and Influences
- Keywords
- depressive symptoms, depression, reward prediction error, episodic memory, reinforcement learning, memory bias, negative affect, outcome variance, memory encoding, reward learning
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Depression, Female, Forecasting, Humans, Learning, Male, Photic Stimulation, Reinforcement, Psychology, Reward, Young Adult, Memory, Episodic
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