title: Components of reward-driven attentional capture.
abstract: Recent research reported that task-irrelevant colors captured attention if these colors previously served as search targets and received high monetary reward. We showed that both monetary reward and value-independent mechanisms influenced selective attention. Participants searched for two potential target colors among distractor colors in the training phase. Subsequently, they searched for a shape singleton in a testing phase. Experiment 1 found that participants were slower in the testing phase if a distractor of a previous target color was present rather than absent. Such slowing was observed even when no monetary reward was used during training. Experiment 2 associated monetary rewards with the target colors during the training phase. Participants were faster finding the target associated with higher monetary reward. However, reward training did not yield value-dependent attentional capture in the testing phase. Attentional capture by the previous target colors was not significantly greater for the previously high-reward color than the previously low or no-reward color. These findings revealed both the power and limitations of monetary reward on attention. Although monetary reward can increase attentional priority for the high-reward target during training, subsequent attentional capture effects may not be reward-based, but reflect, in part, attentional capture by previous targets.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, 75 East River Road, S506 Elliot Hall, Minneapolis, MN, 55455, USA. lixx3632@umn.edu.
authors.forename: Li Z
authors.initials: LZ
authors.lastname: Sha
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, 75 East River Road, S506 Elliot Hall, Minneapolis, MN, 55455, USA.
authors.forename: Yuhong V
authors.initials: YV
authors.lastname: Jiang
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D001364:Awareness; D003118:Color Perception; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012201:Reward; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Attentional capture; Reward learning; Selective attention; Visual search