Incidental emotions influence risk preference and outcome evaluation

Abstract

Incidental emotions, which are irrelevant to the current decision, play a significant role in the decision-making process. In this study, to investigate the influence of incidental emotions on behavioral, psychological, and electrophysiological responses in the process of decision making, participants were required to perform a monetary gambling task. During the selection stage, an emotional picture, which was chosen from the Chinese Affective Picture System and fell into one of three categories: negative, neutral, and positive, was presented between two alternatives (small/large amount of bet). The pictures were provided to induce incidental emotions. ERPs and self-rating emotional experiences to outcome feedback were recorded during the task. Behavioral results showed that positive incidental emotions elicited risk preference, but emotional experiences to outcome feedback were not influenced by incidental emotions. The feedback-related negativity amplitudes were larger in the positive emotion condition than in the negative and neutral emotion conditions for small outcomes (including wins and losses), whereas there was no difference between the three conditions for large outcomes. In addition, the amplitudes of P3 were reduced overall in the negative emotion condition. We suggest that incidental emotions have modulated both the option assessment stage (manifested in behavioral choices) and the outcome evaluation stage (manifested in ERP amplitudes) of decision making unconsciously (indicated by unchanged subjective emotional experiences). The current findings have expanded our understanding of the role of incidental emotion in decision making.

The neural dynamics underlying the interpersonal effects of emotional expression on decision making

“…However, the reversed differentiation pattern on FRN cannot be explained with this theory. In contrast, based on the new proposal that FRN represents reward positivity specifically elicited by favorable feedback44, we speculate that the negative valence embedded in angry expressions counteracted positive valence linking with wins and consequently decreased the positive deflection elicited by wins. Moreover, as there is evidence suggesting a similar functional implication shared by FRN and theta oscillation during outcome evaluation48, we thought the same mechanism could explain the simultaneous reduction in theta power between losses and wins.…”

“…Although the FRN has traditionally been thought to be specifically elicited by bad action feedback26, it has been proposed that this ERP effect might represent a reward positivity, a positive-going ERP component that is specifically elicited by good action feedback3839. Conversely, the more elaborated and conscious appraisal of the motivational significance of an outcome is linked with P300, or described as a feedback-related P300, a positive deflection occurring between 350–600 ms after feedback presentation with a parietal distribution27282930354041424344. The P300 has been attributed to working memory updating after unexpected events and the evaluation of task relevance45 and in the case of feedback processing reflects a later, elaborated and conscious appraisal of the motivational significance of an outcome2941.…”

Event-Related Potentials in Relation to Risk-Taking: A Systematic Review

“…Five studies did not report any valence effects (Oberg et al, 2011 ; Sun et al, 2015 ; Mushtaq et al, 2016 ; Wang et al, 2017 ; Watts et al, 2017 ). Nine out of the 11 studies reporting magnitude effects found consistent results with a larger P3 amplitude for larger magnitude outcomes than for smaller magnitude outcomes, irrespective of whether it was a gain or loss (Wu and Zhou, 2009 ; Polezzi et al, 2010 ; Rigoni et al, 2010 ; Santesso et al, 2011 ; Ibanez et al, 2012 ; Yang et al, 2013 , 2015 ; Zhao et al, 2016 ; Wang et al, 2017 ), whilst the two other studies found the opposite effect, with larger P3 amplitude for smaller magnitude outcomes compared to larger magnitude outcomes (Zhang et al, 2013 ; Mushtaq et al, 2016 ). Watts et al ( 2017 ) reported larger P3 amplitudes in response to unexpected gains compared to expected gains.…”

“…Out of the 24 studies reporting P3 feedback effects for gains and losses, 19 studies reported larger P3 amplitudes for gains compared to losses (Wu and Zhou, 2009 ; Leng and Zhou, 2010 , 2014 ; Polezzi et al, 2010 ; Rigoni et al, 2010 ; Ma et al, 2011 ; Nelson et al, 2011 ; Ibanez et al, 2012 ; Luo and Qu, 2013 ; Yang et al, 2013 , 2015 ; Zhang et al, 2013 , 2014 ; Mushtaq et al, 2015 ; Zheng and Liu, 2015 ; Zhu et al, 2015 , 2017 ; Kardos et al, 2016 ; Zhao et al, 2016 ). Two studies did not find amplitude differences between gain and loss outcomes (Santesso et al, 2011 ; Telpaz and Yechiam, 2014 ), and three studies reported the opposite findings (Schuermann et al, 2012 ; Zheng et al, 2015 ; Endrass et al, 2016 ).…”

Females Are More Sensitive to Opponent’s Emotional Feedback: Evidence From Event-Related Potentials

“…The other is feedback-related P300, a positive deflection with parietal distribution occurring between 300 ms and 600 ms after feedback. This positive component, linking with a more elaborated and conscious appraisal of the motivational significance of performance feedback, was reported to be larger for positive feedback in comparison with negative feedback (Yeung et al, 2004 ; Leng and Zhou, 2010 ; Li et al, 2010 ; Ulrich and Hewig, 2014 ; Mason et al, 2016 ; Zhao et al, 2016 ). Moreover, these two components are sensitive to both monetary and emotional feedback, as the previous study reported that emotional and monetary reward elicited morphologically similar RewP (Ethridge et al, 2017 ) and feedback-related P300 (Oumeziane et al, 2017 ).…”