Rewarding distractor context versus rewarding target location: A commentary on Tseng and Lleras (2013)

The influence of reward on cognitive processes including visual perception, spatial attention, and perceptual learning has become an increasingly important field of study in recent years. For example, Tseng and Lleras (Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 75(2), 287–298, 2013) investigated whether reward has an effect on implicit learning of target–distractor arrangements in visual search—that is, contextual cueing (Chun & Jiang Cognitive Psychology, 36(1), 28–71, 1998). They found that reward expedited the development of the cueing effect—that is, the reaction time difference between repeated and nonrepeated displays. However, their analysis did not account for potential effects of reward on the learning of individual target locations—that is, probability cueing (Jiang, Swallow, & Rosenbaum Journal of Experimental Psychology. Human Perception and Performance, 39, 285–297, 2013). The present study was a replication of Tseng and Lleras (Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 75(2), 287–298, 2013) that took into account reward effects on configural and locational learning, as well. We found that reward led to performance gains even in baseline (“new”) displays, which contained only repeated target, but not distractor, locations. Furthermore, contextual cueing was smaller, and not larger, in high- than in low-reward trials. We concluded that reward modulates probability, and not contextual, cueing, and that this mechanism can account for the findings of Tseng and Lleras.