Attentional capture by signals of reward persists following outcome devaluation.

ABSTRACT: Attention, the mechanism that prioritizes stimuli in the environment for further processing, plays an important role in behavioral choice. In the present study, we investigated the automatic orienting of attention to cues that signal reward. Such attentional capture occurs despite negative consequences, and we investigated whether this counterproductive and reflexive behavior would persist following outcome devaluation. Thirsty participants completed a visual search task in which the color of a distractor stimulus in the search display signaled whether participants would earn water or potato chips for making a rapid eye movement to a diamond target, but looking at the colored distractor was punished by omission of the signaled reward. Nevertheless, participants looked at the water-signalin

SUBMITTER: Watson P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9291204 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature