ArticlePloS one2026
Positive mood enhances accessibility of unrelated concepts in the first language but not in the foreign language.
Article in PloS one, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Prior research has shown that, compared to a negative mood, a positive mood facilitates spreading activation within semantic memory in the first language. Yet, little is still known about neurocognitive mechanisms underlying mood effects on semantic processes in the foreign language. Here, we show that a positive mood enhances accessibility of unrelated concepts within semantic memory in the first but not the foreign language. Highly proficient Polish-English bilingual women were induced into positive and negative mood states with animated films and made semantic relatedness judgements about closely related, weakly related, and unrelated prime-target pairs in their first and foreign languages. Mean N400 responses were analysed as neural markers of spreading activation within semantic memory. Our results revealed reduced N400 responses to unrelated word pairs under a positive compared to a negative mood only in the first language. Critically, no mood-driven effects emerged for the foreign language. These findings provide novel evidence that a positive mood broadens spreading activation within semantic memory only in the first language context, making distant concepts more accessible. Critically, they also highlight mood-independent responding when bilinguals operate in their foreign language.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.