NEGATIVE REWARD PREDICTION ERRORS SHIFT MOOD BUT DO NOT SELECTIVELY DRIVE FRUSTRATION

Frustration is a negative emotional state, and atypical frustration responses have been linked to forms of psychopathology such as irritability. Frustration is thought to arise from repeated negative reward prediction errors (RPEs). However, it has not been shown, whether negative RPEs accumulation leads to frustration, and whether this response is specific or encompasses negative affect more broadly.
To address this gap, we used a task, where individuals choose between a safe win/loss and a gamble with varying ratios of wins/losses. Participants rate their sadness and frustration approximately every second trial. This rating is used in a closed-loop to determine the RPE in the next trials. Depending block type, negative/positive RPEs are used to reach a target negative/positive mood. There were 4 negative and 4 positive blocks interleaved. In addition, participants rated their trait irritability using the Affective Reactivity index (ARI).
Twenty-two young adults (female=14; mean age=24.55+-2.79) participated. Linear-mixed-effects indicated the task systematically induced mood shifts, both frustration (χ²(3)=119.66, p< .001) and sadness (χ²(3)=178.88, p< .001) were significantly modulated by block type. Negative RPEs elicited stronger frustration when individuals were already in a sad state (β=−0.016, p< 0.001). Highly irritable individuals remained more frustrated even after positive RPEs (β=−0.0006, p< .05).
Overall, mood shifts were reliably induced at block-level, whereas trial-level negative RPEs did not selectively drive frustration/sadness. Importantly, our results support recent findings that irritability involves atypical responses to frustration, rather than a more intense immediate emotional reaction. These preliminary findings require replication in larger samples.