The outcome predictability bias is evident in overt attention

Area of Science:

• Cognitive psychology
• Human associative learning
• Attention research

Background:

• Human associative learning is influenced by prior experience with cues.
• Previously informative cues gain higher associability, attracting more attention and facilitating faster learning.
• Recent findings suggest outcomes also exhibit varying associability based on experience, but direct evidence linking this to attention was lacking.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether changes in outcome associability are accompanied by changes in attention.
• To provide direct evidence for attentional shifts in response to outcome predictability.
• To explore parallels between cue and outcome processing in associative learning.

Main Methods:

• Two experiments were conducted using a cued visual search task.
• Participants' eye-gaze was tracked to measure overt attention.
• The predictability of outcome stimuli was systematically manipulated.

Main Results:

• Prior predictability of outcome stimuli significantly biased participants' eye-gaze.
• Learning rates for outcome stimuli were influenced by their prior predictability.
• These effects mirrored attention and learning patterns observed with cue stimuli.

Conclusions:

• Outcome stimuli, similar to cue stimuli, can modulate attention and learning resources based on associative history.
• Prior experience with outcomes affects how individuals attend to and learn about them.
• This supports a unified view of how associative history shapes attention and learning for both cues and outcomes.