Effects of positive mood on probabilistic learning: behavioral and electrophysiological correlates

Whether positive mood can change reinforcement learning or not remains an open question. In this study, we used a probabilistic learning task and explored whether positive mood could alter the way positive versus negative feedback was used to guide learning. This process was characterized both at the behavioral and electro-encephalographic levels. Thirty two participants were randomly allocated either to a positive or a neutral (control) mood condition. Behavioral results showed that while learning performance was balanced between the two groups, participants in the positive mood group had a higher learning rate than participants in the neutral mood group. At the electrophysiological level, we found that positive mood increased the error-related negativity when the stimulus-response associations were deterministic, selectively (as opposed to random or probabilistic). However, it did not influence the feedback-related negativity. These new findings are discussed in terms of an enhanced internal reward prediction error signal after the induction of positive mood when the probability of getting a reward is high.