title: 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.
authors.affiliation: Sichuan Research Center of Applied Psychology, and Collaborative Innovation Center of Sichuan for Elderly Care and Health, Chengdu Medical College, Chengdu, China.
authors.forename: Ding
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Ruolei
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Gu
authors.affiliation: Sichuan Research Center of Applied Psychology, and Collaborative Innovation Center of Sichuan for Elderly Care and Health, Chengdu Medical College, Chengdu, China.
authors.forename: Ping
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.affiliation: Sichuan Research Center of Applied Psychology, and Collaborative Innovation Center of Sichuan for Elderly Care and Health, Chengdu Medical College, Chengdu, China. qiweiyang@sina.com.cn.
authors.forename: Qiwei
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Institute of Affective and Social Neuroscience, College of Psychology and Sociology, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China.|Shenzhen Institute of Neuroscience, Shenzhen, China.
authors.forename: Yue-Jia
authors.initials: YJ
authors.lastname: Luo
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect / Q000502:physiology; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D018913:Event-Related Potentials, P300; D005260:Female; D005717:Games, Experimental; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012306:Risk; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Emotional experience; Event-related potential (ERP); Feedback-related negativity (FRN); Incidental emotion; Outcome evaluation; P3