The present study investigated whether the representation of subjective preferences in the event-related potential is manipulable through selective devaluation, i.e., the consumption of a specific food item until satiety. Thirty-four participants completed a gambling task in which they chose between virtual doors to find one of three snack items, representing a high, medium, or low preference outcome as defined by individual desire-to-eat ratings. In one of two test sessions, they underwent selective devaluation of the high preference outcome. In the other, they completed the task on an empty stomach. Consistent with previous findings, averaged across sessions, amplitudes were increased for more preferred rewards in the time windows of P2, late FRN, and P300. As hypothesised, we also found a selective devaluation effect for the high preference outcome in the P300 time window, reflected in a decrease in amplitude. The present results provide evidence for modulations of reward processing not only by individual factors, such as subjective preferences, but also by the current motivational state. Importantly, the present data suggest that selective devaluation effects in the P300 may be a promising tool to further characterise altered valuation of food rewards in the context of eating disorders and obesity.

Research investigating two-way interaction effects of concreteness, priming and/or the type of prime-target relation helped us understand the mechanisms involved in contextual semantic processing while yielding partially conflicting findings. We investigated the interplay of all three factors in a priming paradigm manipulating target concreteness, prime semantic diversity and prime-target similarity-/association-based relation-strength, measuring N400 amplitudes and lexical decision times in 40 and 70 participants, respectively. The single-trial N400 analysis confirmed that processing abstract words was more strongly modulated by relation-strength than concrete words. Unexpectedly, a prime’s high vs. low semantic diversity partially reversed similarity-driven N400 modulations, irrespective of concreteness. Regarding reaction times, semantic diversity reduced whereas relation-strength enhanced priming effects, unexpectedly irrespective of concreteness. Our results support semantic control hypotheses and controvert differential representational frameworks for concrete and abstract words. Additionally, a primes’ semantic diversity seems to directly affect whether the prime-target relation strength reduces semantic retrieval effort and eventually facilitates semantic word processing.