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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Mar 11, 2026

Pavlovian Conditioned Approach Training in Rats

Pavlovian Conditioned Approach Training in Rats

Published on: February 4, 2016

Pavlovian reward learning underlies value driven attentional capture.

Berno Bucker¹, Jan Theeuwes²

¹Department of Experimental and Applied Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Van der Boechorststraat 1, 1081 BT, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. berno.bucker@vu.nl.

Attention, Perception & Psychophysics

|December 2, 2016

Summary

Pavlovian conditioning of stimuli with rewards, even when task-irrelevant, drives attention. This value-driven attentional capture occurs independently of task performance or spatial attention shifts.

Keywords:

Associative reward learning Attentional capture Pavlovian conditioning Visual attention

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Last Updated: Mar 11, 2026

Pavlovian Conditioned Approach Training in Rats

Pavlovian Conditioned Approach Training in Rats

Published on: February 4, 2016

Studying Food Reward and Motivation in Humans

Studying Food Reward and Motivation in Humans

Published on: March 19, 2014

Using Rapid Serial Visual Presentation to Measure Set-Specific Capture, a Consequence of Distraction While Multitasking

Using Rapid Serial Visual Presentation to Measure Set-Specific Capture, a Consequence of Distraction While Multitasking

Published on: August 29, 2018

Area of Science:

Cognitive Psychology
Neuroscience
Behavioral Science

Background:

Attentional capture is influenced by reward availability, but previous studies conflated associative learning with instrumental reward acquisition.
The role of purely associative, response-independent reward learning in value-driven attentional capture remains unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate if Pavlovian conditioning of task-irrelevant stimuli with rewards causes value-driven attentional capture.
To determine if this effect is independent of instrumental reward learning and spatial attention shifts.

Main Methods:

Two experiments involved participants performing a fixation task while stimuli (peripheral or central) were associated with high or low rewards, independent of responses.
A subsequent test phase used the additional singleton paradigm to measure attentional capture by previously reward-associated stimuli.

Main Results:

Distractors associated with high rewards captured attention more strongly than those associated with low rewards, impairing task performance.
This effect occurred even when stimuli were task-irrelevant, spatially distant, and reward association was response-independent.

Conclusions:

Genuine Pavlovian conditioning of stimulus-reward contingencies is sufficient for value-driven attentional capture.
Value-driven attentional capture can be driven by temporally and spatially irrelevant cues through associative learning, independent of performance or spatial attention training.