On the relationship between value-driven and stimulus-driven attentional capture

Abstract

Reward history, physical salience, and task relevance all influence the degree to which a stimulus competes for attention, reflecting value-driven, stimulus-driven, and goal-contingent attentional capture, respectively. Theories of value-driven attention have likened reward cues to physically salient stimuli, positing that reward cues are preferentially processed in early visual areas as a result of value-modulated plasticity in the visual system. Such theories predict a strong coupling between value-driven and stimulus-driven attentional capture across individuals. In the present study, we directly test this hypothesis, and demonstrate a robust correlation between value-driven and stimulus-driven attentional capture. Our findings suggest substantive overlap in the mechanisms of competition underlying the attentional priority of reward cues and physically salient stimuli.

Keywords: Eye movements; Reward learning; Selective attention; Visual salience.

Figure 1.

Sequence and time course of trial events for each experimental task.

Figure 2.

Proportion of errant saccades by stimulus type in the test phase. Error bars reflect within-subjects confidence intervals. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.001.

Figure 3.

Correlation between the proportion of trials on which a high-value distractor was fixated in the test phase and the proportion of trials on which a physically salient distractor was fixated in the additional singleton task.