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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Aug 15, 2025

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

The persistence of value-driven attention capture is task-dependent.

A E Milner¹, M H MacLean^2,3, B Giesbrecht^2,3,4

¹Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA. amilner@ucsb.edu.

Attention, Perception & Psychophysics

|January 7, 2023

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Value-driven attention capture (VDAC) persists without reinforcement, but this study found VDAC extinction when reward associations were removed. VDAC may depend on task demands, suggesting it is subject to reinforcement learning principles.

Keywords:

Attention capture Reward Selection history Selective attention

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Psychology
Neuroscience
Attention Research

Background:

Value-driven attention capture (VDAC) describes how task-irrelevant visual features associated with rewards capture attention.
Unlike typical learning, VDAC is thought to persist even without ongoing reinforcement, resisting extinction.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the conditions under which VDAC occurs and whether it is subject to extinction.
To examine the influence of task relevance and feature salience on VDAC persistence and extinction.

Main Methods:

Five experiments involved visual search tasks with learning and delayed test phases.
During learning, participants associated one target color with reward and another with no reward.
The test phase, occurring one week later, involved unreinforced trials to assess VDAC and extinction.

Main Results:

VDAC was observed when the rewarded feature remained task-relevant.
When the rewarded feature was task-irrelevant, VDAC was generally absent, except in specific conditions (Experiment 5).
When VDAC was observed, extinction also occurred, contradicting the idea of VDAC's inherent persistence.

Conclusions:

VDAC may be more dependent on task demands than previously assumed.
The findings suggest VDAC is not independent of reinforcement and is subject to extinction.
This challenges the notion that VDAC is a uniquely persistent form of attention capture.