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Cited by 27Neural and Behavioral Psychology StudiesVisual Attention and Saliency DetectionVisual perception and processing mechanisms

Irrelevant learned reward associations disrupt voluntary spatial attention

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MacLean, Mary H., Diaz, Gisella K., Giesbrecht, Barry·2016·Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics
DOI 10.3758/s13414-016-1103-x
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Abstract

Attention can be guided involuntarily by physical salience and by non-salient, previously learned reward associations that are currently task-irrelevant. Attention can be guided voluntarily by current goals and expectations. The current study examined, in two experiments, whether irrelevant reward associations could disrupt current, goal-driven, voluntary attention. In a letter-search task, attention was directed voluntarily (i.e., cued) on half the trials by a cue stimulus indicating the hemifield in which the target letter would appear with 100 % accuracy. On the other half of the trials, a cue stimulus was presented, but it did not provide information about the target hemifield (i.e., uncued). On both cued and uncued trials, attention could be involuntarily captured by the presence of a task-irrelevant, and physically non-salient, color, either within the cued or the uncued hemifield. Importantly, one week prior to the letter search task, the irrelevant color had served as a target feature that was predictive of reward in a separate training task. Target identification accuracy was better on cued compared to uncued trials. However, this effect was reduced when the irrelevant, and physically non-salient, reward-associated feature was present in the uncued hemifield. This effect was not observed in a second, control experiment in which the irrelevant color was not predictive of reward during training. Our results indicate that involuntary, value-driven capture can disrupt the voluntary control of spatial attention.

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  • Recent studies showed that the ceasing of capture by abrupt onset distractors when attention is focused is not the case for reward-signaling or previously reward-associated stimuli.

    “recent studies showed that this is not the case for reward-signaling or previously reward-associated stimuli (e.g., MacLean, Diaz, & Giesbrecht, 2016; Munneke, Belopolsky, & Theeuwes, 2016; Munneke, Hoppenbrouwers, & Theeuwes, 2015; Wang et al., 2015).”

    From Selection history: How reward modulates selectivity of visual attention. (2018) · cites this paper as MacLean, Diaz, & Giesbrecht, 2016

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Authors
MacLean, M. H., Diaz, G. K., & Giesbrecht, B.
Affiliations
University of California, Santa Barbara (US)
Corresponding author
MacLean, Mary H.
ORCID
Venue
Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2016-04-15
Volume
78
Issue
7
Pages
2241-2252
ISSN
  • 1943-3921 (ISSN-L)
  • 1943-393X
DOI
10.3758/s13414-016-1103-x
OpenAlex
W2342253102
Cited by
27
References
43
Citations by year
2026: 1 · 2025: 2 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 5 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 2
FWCI
2.97
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
Locations
  • Attention Perception & Psychophysics (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
  • U.S. Army Research Office (W911NF-09-0001)
  • McNair Scholars Program (Research Fellowship)
  • Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (Postdoctoral Fellowship)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition › Visual Attention and Saliency Detection
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
Keywords
reward association, value-driven attention, attentional control, letter search task, color cues, task-irrelevant features, attentional capture, goal-driven attention
MeSH terms
Association Learning, Attention, Cues, Female, Humans, Male, Reaction Time, Reward, Spatial Processing

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