Appetitive and aversive outcome associations modulate exogenous cueing

In two experiments, we utilized an exogenous cueing task in which different-colored abrupt-onset cues were associated with an appetitive (gain of 10 cents), aversive (loss of 5 cents), or neutral (no gain or loss) outcome. Reward delivery did not depend on performance, but instead the specific exogenous cues were always followed by their corresponding outcome in a classical-conditioning-like manner. Compared to neutral cues and independent of cue-target delay, the results of Experiment 1 showed that appetitive cues strengthened attentional capture, whereas aversive cues reduced attentional capture. The data revealed that both appetitive and aversive cues initially facilitated responding at the validly cued location. At the long cue-target delays, however, this facilitation effect at the validly cued location remained present for gain-associated cues while it reversed for loss-associated cues. The results of Experiment 2 confirmed these findings by showing that both neutral and aversive cues initially facilitated responding at the cued location and that, at long cue-target delays, aversive cues elicited stronger reorienting away from the cued location as compared to neutral cues. Together these findings indicate that all abrupt-onset cues initially capture attention independent of their outcome association. Yet, if time passes, attention remains lingering at the location of gain-associated cues, whereas attention is released and reoriented away from the location of loss-associated cues. Altogether, we show that associating the color of an abrupt-onset cue with an appetitive or aversive outcome can modulate attentional deployment following exogenous cueing.