Learned value magnifies salience-based attentional capture

Abstract

Visual attention is captured by physically salient stimuli (termed salience-based attentional capture), and by otherwise task-irrelevant stimuli that contain goal-related features (termed contingent attentional capture). Recently, we reported that physically nonsalient stimuli associated with value through reward learning also capture attention involuntarily (Anderson, Laurent, & Yantis, PNAS, 2011). Although it is known that physical salience and goal-relatedness both influence attentional priority, it is unknown whether or how attentional capture by a salient stimulus is modulated by its associated value. Here we show that a physically salient, task-irrelevant distractor previously associated with a large reward slows visual search more than an equally salient distractor previously associated with a smaller reward. This magnification of salience-based attentional capture by learned value extinguishes over several hundred trials. These findings reveal a broad influence of learned value on involuntary attentional capture.

Figure 1. Behavioral Task.

Sequence of events and time course for a trial during training (a) and at test (b) in Experiment 1.

Figure 2. Behavioral Results for the Training Phase of Experiment 1.

Mean response time ± within-subjects s.e.m. for high- and low-reward targets over the course of the training phase. Only the main effect of trial block was significant [F(9,153) = 4.92, p<.001, η_p ² = .224].

Figure 3. Behavioral Results for the Test Phase of Experiment 1.

Mean response time ± within-subjects s.e.m. for each distractor condition over the course of the test phase. The difference in RT on trials containing a high-value vs. a low-value distractor represents the effect of learned value on salience-driven attentional capture.

Figure 4. Behavioral Results for the Test Phase of Experiment 2.

Mean response time ± within-subjects s.e.m. for each distractor condition over the course of the test phase.