TY - JOUR
T1 - Modulatory Effects of Positive Mood on Cognition
T2 - Lessons From Attention and Error Monitoring
AU - Pourtois, Gilles
AU - Vanlessen, Naomi
AU - Bakic, Jasmina
AU - Paul, Katharina
PY - 2017/12
Y1 - 2017/12
N2 - The importance of positive mood for health and well-being is a truism. However, we still lack clear understanding of the nature and range of modulatory effects created by positive mood on cognition in humans. Here, we briefly review two recent research lines that have attempted to address this question systematically. Specifically, research on attention has explored the boundaries of the so-called broadening of attention with positive mood. Likewise, effects of positive mood on error monitoring have been scrutinized lately. The new empirical findings gathered in these two separate research domains concur on the assumption that positive mood is not merely adding noise to cognition. Instead, this mood state seems to provide the organism with meaningful (internal) information, which allows for timely and flexible exploration of new opportunities in the (external) environment and alters the motivational significance of negative events, such as response errors, in a rather flexible way. As such, these new findings provide information about the existence of complex interaction effects between positive mood and cognition and may help, in turn, to better appraise the actual role and function of this protective mood state for health and cognition.
AB - The importance of positive mood for health and well-being is a truism. However, we still lack clear understanding of the nature and range of modulatory effects created by positive mood on cognition in humans. Here, we briefly review two recent research lines that have attempted to address this question systematically. Specifically, research on attention has explored the boundaries of the so-called broadening of attention with positive mood. Likewise, effects of positive mood on error monitoring have been scrutinized lately. The new empirical findings gathered in these two separate research domains concur on the assumption that positive mood is not merely adding noise to cognition. Instead, this mood state seems to provide the organism with meaningful (internal) information, which allows for timely and flexible exploration of new opportunities in the (external) environment and alters the motivational significance of negative events, such as response errors, in a rather flexible way. As such, these new findings provide information about the existence of complex interaction effects between positive mood and cognition and may help, in turn, to better appraise the actual role and function of this protective mood state for health and cognition.
KW - positive mood
KW - attention
KW - error monitoring
KW - event-related potentials
U2 - 10.1177/0963721417709551
DO - 10.1177/0963721417709551
M3 - Article
SN - 0963-7214
VL - 26
SP - 495
EP - 501
JO - Current Directions in Psychological Science
JF - Current Directions in Psychological Science
IS - 6
ER -