Distraction driven by reward history: Attentional capture and sequential effects.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive psychology
• Neuroscience
• Decision science

Background:

• Learned reward values can influence attention, a phenomenon known as value-driven attentional capture (VDAC).
• Sequential effects, where previous trial features impact current performance, are also known to modulate attention.
• The interplay between learned value and sequential effects on attentional capture remains underexplored.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how learned reward value modulates sequential effects in attentional capture.
• To examine whether different types of reward (monetary, sustainability-related) influence this interaction.
• To understand how VDAC and sequential effects jointly shape attentional processing.

Main Methods:

• Two experiments employed a VDAC paradigm with a learning phase (flanker task) and a test phase (singleton task).
• Letter colors were associated with high, low, or no monetary/sustainability-related reward.
• Distractor value from the current and previous trials was manipulated to assess attentional capture.

Main Results:

• Repetition of distractor value across trials (N-1 to N) consistently led to faster responses, irrespective of reward value.
• Attentional capture by rewarded distractors occurred when the preceding trial featured an unrewarded distractor.
• Re-encountering distractors, even those with different learned values, reduced current trial attentional capture.

Conclusions:

• Distractor value repetition facilitates performance through sequential effects, independent of learned reward magnitude.
• Learned reward value modulates attentional capture, particularly when sequential effects do not provide a strong cue.
• The processing of learned values is a dynamic interplay between reward-driven capture and sequential repetition effects.