Previously reward-associated sounds interfere with goal-directed auditory processing

Abstract

Previously reward-associated stimuli have consistently been shown to involuntarily capture attention in the visual domain. Although previously reward-associated but currently task-irrelevant sounds have also been shown to interfere with visual processing, it remains unclear whether such stimuli can interfere with the processing of task-relevant auditory information. To address this question, we modified a dichotic listening task to measure interference from task-irrelevant but previously reward-associated sounds. In a training phase, participants were simultaneously presented with a spoken letter and number in different auditory streams and learned to associate the correct identification of each of three letters with high, low, and no monetary reward, respectively. In a subsequent test phase, participants were again presented with the same auditory stimuli but were instead instructed to report the number while ignoring spoken letters. In both the training and test phases, response time measures demonstrated that attention was biased in favor of the auditory stimulus associated with high value. Our findings demonstrate that attention can be biased towards learned reward cues in the auditory domain, interfering with goal-directed auditory processing.

Reward priming differentially modulates enhancement and inhibition in auditory decision-making

“…On the contrary, reward priming suppressed the participants' responses when the stimulus was different from the one in the previous trial. This concurs with extant literature on reward priming [1,3,5,6]. The reward priming inhibition may influence decisions independent of the knowledge of rewards; the inhibition of reward priming is modulated by actual reward size; that is, the suppression by reward priming is driven by bottom-up process.…”

“…Therefore, there is a possibility that reward priming comprises partially distinct processes. While it is possible that these results are task-dependent, several experimental tasks have shown reward-driven effects [5,15,18,19], suggesting that the effects of reward priming are based on a domain-general mechanism.…”

“…Individuals' behavior is influenced when rewards are not associated with the current task. For instance, when stimuli that were previously associated with rewards but are currently independent are presented, participants' responses have been noted to be slower [1][2][3][4][5]. Moreover, Hickey et al [6] revealed that a stimulus presented with a reward in the previous trial distorted the attentional process while rewards were independent of stimulus and actual performance.…”

How Does Threat Modulate the Motivational Effects of Reward on Attention?

“…Our sample size was based off a power analysis evaluating the effect of reward on response time (RT) in an identical version of the experimental task (Kim et al, 2021b), estimating a sample size of n = 30 to yield power (1 À β) > .8. In addition, we have previously measured the modulatory effect of threat on VDAC in a between-subjects design, but measuring involuntary attentional capture in the visual domain, and found a significant interaction effect of threat and reward with a sample size of 32 (Kim & Anderson, 2020c).…”

“…In the present study, we investigated how experimentally inducing anxiety modulates voluntary attentional biases using the training phase of the VDAC paradigm in the auditory domain (Kim et al, 2021b). We utilized a between-subjects approach in which half of the participants were exposed to unpredictable threat of electric shock while they performed the task (Kim & Anderson, 2020c).…”