Inconsistent Mood Congruent Effects in Lexical Decision Experiments

During a lexical decision task, the mood congruent effect occurs when a participant responds more quickly and accurately to word items that are congruent with their current mood. The present study investigates the inconsistencies found for mood congruent effects in the lexical decision task literature. Previous studies that have successfully produced the mood congruent effect used a pseudohomophone nonword context while studies that have not successfully produced the effect used a scrambled nonword context. The purpose of this study was to assess if manipulating the nonword context would interact with the mood congruent effect in a similar manner as other semantic effects. A significant effect for nonword context was found. However, a significant mood congruent effect was not found.