Cargando…

Don’t let it distract you: how information about the availability of reward affects attentional selection

Previous research has shown that attentional selection is affected by reward contingencies: previously selected and rewarded stimuli continue to capture attention even if the reward contingencies are no longer in place. In the current study, we investigated whether attentional selection also is affe...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Failing, Michel, Theeuwes, Jan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer US 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5662709/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28733838
http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13414-017-1376-8
_version_ 1783274687550193664
author Failing, Michel
Theeuwes, Jan
author_facet Failing, Michel
Theeuwes, Jan
author_sort Failing, Michel
collection PubMed
description Previous research has shown that attentional selection is affected by reward contingencies: previously selected and rewarded stimuli continue to capture attention even if the reward contingencies are no longer in place. In the current study, we investigated whether attentional selection also is affected by stimuli that merely signal the magnitude of reward available on a given trial but, crucially, have never had instrumental value. In a series of experiments, we show that a stimulus signaling high reward availability captures attention even when that stimulus is and was never physically salient or part of the task set, and selecting it is harmful for obtaining reward. Our results suggest that irrelevant reward-signaling stimuli capture attention, because participants have learned about the relationship between the stimulus and reward. Importantly, we only observed learning after initial attentional prioritization of the reward signaling stimulus. We conclude that nonsalient, task-irrelevant but reward-signaling stimuli can affect attentional selection above and beyond top-down or bottom-up attentional control, however, only after such stimuli were initially prioritized for selection. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.3758/s13414-017-1376-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-5662709
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2017
publisher Springer US
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-56627092017-11-15 Don’t let it distract you: how information about the availability of reward affects attentional selection Failing, Michel Theeuwes, Jan Atten Percept Psychophys Article Previous research has shown that attentional selection is affected by reward contingencies: previously selected and rewarded stimuli continue to capture attention even if the reward contingencies are no longer in place. In the current study, we investigated whether attentional selection also is affected by stimuli that merely signal the magnitude of reward available on a given trial but, crucially, have never had instrumental value. In a series of experiments, we show that a stimulus signaling high reward availability captures attention even when that stimulus is and was never physically salient or part of the task set, and selecting it is harmful for obtaining reward. Our results suggest that irrelevant reward-signaling stimuli capture attention, because participants have learned about the relationship between the stimulus and reward. Importantly, we only observed learning after initial attentional prioritization of the reward signaling stimulus. We conclude that nonsalient, task-irrelevant but reward-signaling stimuli can affect attentional selection above and beyond top-down or bottom-up attentional control, however, only after such stimuli were initially prioritized for selection. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.3758/s13414-017-1376-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. Springer US 2017-07-21 2017 /pmc/articles/PMC5662709/ /pubmed/28733838 http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13414-017-1376-8 Text en © The Author(s) 2017 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
spellingShingle Article
Failing, Michel
Theeuwes, Jan
Don’t let it distract you: how information about the availability of reward affects attentional selection
title Don’t let it distract you: how information about the availability of reward affects attentional selection
title_full Don’t let it distract you: how information about the availability of reward affects attentional selection
title_fullStr Don’t let it distract you: how information about the availability of reward affects attentional selection
title_full_unstemmed Don’t let it distract you: how information about the availability of reward affects attentional selection
title_short Don’t let it distract you: how information about the availability of reward affects attentional selection
title_sort don’t let it distract you: how information about the availability of reward affects attentional selection
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5662709/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28733838
http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13414-017-1376-8
work_keys_str_mv AT failingmichel dontletitdistractyouhowinformationabouttheavailabilityofrewardaffectsattentionalselection
AT theeuwesjan dontletitdistractyouhowinformationabouttheavailabilityofrewardaffectsattentionalselection