Importantly, alcohol affected only the in-depth processing of adverse consequences, not positive ones. Subsequently, it is interesting to relate the role of P300 amplitude in feedback processing to that in affective information processing, since both types of stimuli are of affective significance. Hence, P300 amplitude could be a manifestation of emotional appraisal following feedback. This interpretation is in concordance with previous research linking alcohol administration to decreased processing of affective information. For example, in a study of Franken and colleagues (2007), ERPs resulting from watching pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral pictures were investigated in a group of participants receiving a beverage containing a moderate dose of alcohol. Results showed that the brain’s response to unpleasant emotional pictures was attenuated after ingestion of a moderate dose of alcohol, suggesting that alcohol selectively reduced processing of unpleasant stimuli. Moreover, Franken et al. (2007) could only demonstrate an effect of alcohol on the ERP index that reflects the later attention-sensitive, more elaborated appraisal of unpleasant stimuli. In a general sense, our results are thus also in line with the notion that alcohol has larger
