Value-driven attentional capture prevents commission errors in real time

Failures of sustained attention are pervasive in everyday life. In the lab, these states of attention can be tracked unobtrusively using response times (RTs) in monotonous, continuous performance tasks requiring frequent responses. Here, we used a RT-based real-time triggering procedure to investigate the interplay between fluctuations of attentional state and another attentional phenomenon: experience-dependent capture. We investigated predictions from two related accounts. One proposes attentional lapses could reduce one's ability to suppress capture by the distractor (capture-suppression account). The other proposes capture could "snap" attention back into focus (perceptual-recoupling account). Participants first completed a training task that differentiated colored targets by reward and then performed a sustained attention task that required they execute visual search on each trial. On rare trials, the colors relevant during training served as distractors inserted during lapsing and focused states. The results aligned with predictions from the perceptual-recoupling account: Experiment 1 showed that both novel and reward-associated distractors enhanced accuracy, whereas Experiment 2 showed a moderation of the reward-driven effect during fast-triggered moments. Pooled analyses confirmed a reliable reward-driven reduction in errors that diminished over successive blocks and was most pronounced early on for participants with stronger color-reward associations during fast-triggered trials. This study shows the potential of using experience-dependent capture to mitigate performance decrements associated with lapsing attention.