Abstract:

Anxiety is an important emotion in our daily life, which influences human decision-making significantly. Investigating the research field of rewarding learning may help with understanding the role of anxiety in decision-making process. However, the potential impact of anxiety on rewarding learning is largely absent in previous literature. In addition, studies devoted to this topic have limitations about the experimental paradigms and techniques being applied. Regarding the complexity of the reward learning concept, we suggest researchers exploring the relationship between anxiety and reward learning in various scenarios including probabilistic learning, associative learning, reversal learning, and social learning. The moderating effect of anxiety on individual reward learning in different scenarios may appear to be diverse, which is awaited to be clarified.

Key words: anxiety, decision-making, reward learning