Neurophysiological Correlates of Target-Related Visual Attention Processes as a Function of Reward in Connection with...

In everyday life, we constantly select and perceive relevant information while suppressing irrelevant sensory input. This selection process is governed by the interaction between bottom-up and top-down attention mechanisms. Recent studies also highlighted the influence of reward on attention, with monetary rewards shown to enhance task performance and modulate stimulus salience. Schizotypy, conceptualized as a continuum ranging from healthy states to schizophrenia symptoms, provides a framework for the investigation of these mechanisms in non-clinical populations. This study investigated the behavioral and neurophysiological correlates of visual attention and reward processing, and their relationship with schizotypy traits. Thirty-six healthy participants were divided into two groups which performed a visual attention task with salient distractors and rewarded (target reward group, TR) or not rewarded (no reward group, NR) target stimuli while EEG was recorded. Additionally, schizotypy was assessed using the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ). The results showed that salient, but task-irrelevant distractors increased response times compared to target-only trials irrespective of reward. On the neurophysiological level, distractors decreased target prioritization in the NR group. Furthermore, participants with higher scores on the negative schizotypy dimension showed stronger target prioritization, especially in the absence of salient distractors. These findings suggest that monetary rewards can modulate attentional control mechanisms and that negative schizotypy traits are linked to altered attentional prioritization.