Effects of Positive Moods with Different Arousal Levels on the Lexical Decision Process: An Event-related Potential Study

Abstract

Positive moods are thought to promote the activation of semantic representation. Although recent studies have shown that the effects of mood on cognitive processes are influenced by mood arousal, it has thus far been unclear whether high- and low-arousal positive moods differently influence the lexical decision process. In this study, 24 university students performed a lexical decision task under high-arousal positive, low-arousal positive, and neutral moods, which were induced by sound clips. The amplitudes of the N400 elicited by word and pseudoword stimuli were greater under high-arousal positive moods than under neutral moods. The differences between low-arousal positive and neutral moods were not significant. These results suggest that a certain level of mood arousal is required for positive mood to promote semantic processing.