Conference on Cognitive Computational Neuroscience

Valence biases in learning have been shown to relate to biases in episodic memory. Here, we examined whether valence biases in reinforcement learning (i.e., relative overweighting of positive or negative prediction errors), relate to biases in autobiographical recall of good and bad memories. Participants’ learning biases, as well as prediction error magnitude and valence for a given trial, interacted to predict memory for the trial-unique image. Additionally, we found that valence biases in learning may be associated with biases in task-based memory, but do not relate to biases in autobiographical memory. Also, although participants recalled more good days than bad days, they tended to be more elaborative when describing bad days. Together, our results suggest that the relationship between learning and memory valence biases may be task and/or time-dependent.