Cognitive control and counterproductive oculomotor capture by reward-related stimuli

Value-modulated oculomotor capture by task-irrelevant stimuli is a consequence of early competition on the saccade map

“…As noted above, previous studies (Le Pearson et al, 2015) have demonstrated that reward exerts an influence on oculomotor capture by task-irrelevant stimuli that is independent of physical salience in speeded search tasks, which might suggest that reward influences early competition on the saccade map. However, in these studies, the critical reward-predicting stimulus was a physically salient colour singleton.…”

“…However, recent work-much of it from the lab of Steven Yantis-has reinvigorated this idea by demonstrating conclusively that learning about the relationships between stimuli and rewards influences the likelihood that those stimuli will automatically capture attention (e.g., Anderson, Laurent, & Yantis, 2011a, 2011bAnderson & Yantis, 2012;Della Libera & Chelazzi, 2009;Failing & Theeuwes, 2014;Hickey, Chelazzi, & Theeuwes, 2010Le Pelley et al, 2015;Pearson, Donkin, Tran, Most, & Le Pelley, 2015;Rutherford, O'Brien, & Raymond, 2010;; for a systematic review, see Le Pelley et al, 2016). Specifically, these studies demonstrate that stimuli associated with high-value rewards are more likely to capture attention than equally salient stimuli that are associated with low rewards (or no reward).…”

“…The implication is that the likelihood of capture is also influenced by learning about the size of the reward signalled by the distractor, independently of its physical salience (hence our description of value-modulated, rather than value-driven, capture). Furthermore, as the VMOC effect is directly counterproductive to the participant's goal of maximizing reward, it seems that the processes responsible are automatic rather than being under the control of a top-down selection strategy (see also Pearson et al, 2015). In line with this idea, it has been suggested that pairing a particular stimulus feature (e.g., red colour) with reward increases the strength of that feature's representation on attentional (Awh et al, 2012) and saccadic (Belopolsky, 2015; priority maps.…”

“…This suggests that people develop an attentional and oculomotor bias towards stimulus features that signal high reward, even when orienting to those features has never been relevant to obtaining the reward. We have termed this effect value-modulated oculomotor capture (VMOC; Pearson et al, 2015).…”

“…Given that the distractor stimulus in the search display of Le Pelley et al's (2015) procedure was physically salient (since it was a colour singleton), we might expect it to capture attention and eye movements on the basis of this physical salience in a stimulus-driven fashion (Theeuwes, 1992(Theeuwes, , 1994Theeuwes, Kramer, Hahn, Irwin, & Zelinsky, 1999). However, the results of this study show that the physical characteristics of the stimuli cannot be the only determinants of attentional capture, because the salience of the high-and lowvalue distractors was matched across participants by counterbalancing.…”