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Cited by 11Neural and Behavioral Psychology StudiesDecision-Making and Behavioral EconomicsNeurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior

Effects of affective arousal on choice behavior, reward prediction errors, and feedback-related negativities in human reward-based decision making

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Liu, Hong-Hsiang, Hsieh, Ming H., Hsu, Yung-Fong, Lai, Wen-Sung·2015·Frontiers in Psychology
DOI 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00592PMC PMC4434921
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Abstract

Emotional experience has a pervasive impact on choice behavior, yet the underlying mechanism remains unclear. Introducing facial-expression primes into a probabilistic learning task, we investigated how affective arousal regulates reward-related choice based on behavioral, model fitting, and feedback-related negativity (FRN) data. Sixty-six paid subjects were randomly assigned to the Neutral-Neutral (NN), Angry-Neutral (AN), and Happy-Neutral (HN) groups. A total of 960 trials were conducted. Subjects in each group were randomly exposed to half trials of the pre-determined emotional faces and another half of the neutral faces before choosing between two cards drawn from two decks with different assigned reward probabilities. Trial-by-trial data were fit with a standard reinforcement learning model using the Bayesian estimation approach. The temporal dynamics of brain activity were simultaneously recorded and analyzed using event-related potentials. Our analyses revealed that subjects in the NN group gained more reward values than those in the other two groups; they also exhibited comparatively differential estimated model-parameter values for reward prediction errors. Computing the difference wave of FRNs in reward vs. non-reward trials, we found that, compared to the NN group, subjects in the AN and HN groups had larger "General" FRNs (i.e., FRNs in no-reward trials minus FRNs in reward trials) and "Expected" FRNs (i.e., FRNs in expected reward-omission trials minus FRNs in expected reward-delivery trials), indicating an interruption in predicting reward. Further, both AN and HN groups appeared to be more sensitive to negative outcomes than the NN group. Collectively, our study suggests that affective arousal negatively regulates reward-related choice, probably through overweighting with negative feedback.

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  • Showing angry or happy faces immediately before probabilistic choice induced in healthy volunteers increased sensitivity to negative feedback at psychophysiological and behavioral levels compared to volunteers shown neutral faces.

    “Так, показ гневных или счастливых лиц непосредственно перед вероятностным выбором индуцировал у здоровых добровольцев повышенную чувствительность к негативной обратной связи на психофизиологическом и на поведенческом уровне по сравнению с добровольцами, которым демонстрировали лица с нейтральным выражением (Liu et al., 2015).”

    From Когнитивные механизмы дисфункционального принятия решений при психических расстройствах (2025) · cites this paper as Liu et al., 2015

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Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Liu, H.-H., Hsieh, M. H., Hsu, Y.-F., & Lai, W.-S.
Affiliations
  • National Taiwan University (TW)
  • National Taiwan University Hospital (TW)
Corresponding author
  • Hsu, Yung-Fong
  • Lai, Wen-Sung
ORCID
Venue
Frontiers in Psychology
Publisher
Frontiers Media SA
Published
2015-05-18
Volume
6
Pages
592-592
ISSN
1664-1078 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00592
PMC
PMC4434921
OpenAlex
W1518408905
Cited by
11
References
1
Citations by year
2026: 1 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 2 · 2022: 1 · 2020: 1 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 1
FWCI
0.60
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
cc-by
Locations
  • Frontiers in Psychology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Funders
  • Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan (MOST103-2325-B002-047)
  • National Taiwan University Hospital
  • National Taiwan University
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
Keywords
emotional arousal, reward-based decision-making, reward prediction error, feedback-related negativity, emotional facial expressions, reinforcement learning models, probabilistic learning, negative feedback sensitivity, expected reward, event-related potentials

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