Former philosophy PhD from the University of Barcelona, and currently Juan de la Cierva investigator at the University of Valencia, Aarón Álvarez González was invited present his research at the Valence Asymmetries seminar, on 10 February 2026. His talk entitled "Pessimistic Knowers: Emotional valence and epistemic standards" explored the intriguing phenomenon that people are better at assessing evidence when they are in bad mood or under otherwise negative emotions. He put forward the hypothesis that negative valence raises epistemic stakes for evaluative judgments, while positive valence lowers them. The talk was thought-provoking and gave rise to a very lively discussion.