Reward Changes Salience in Human Vision via the Anterior Cingulate

Abstract

Reward-related mesolimbic dopamine steers animal behavior, creating automatic approach toward reward-associated objects and avoidance of objects unlikely to be beneficial. Theories of dopamine suggest that this reflects underlying biases in perception and attention, with reward enhancing the representation of reward-associated stimuli such that attention is more likely to be deployed to the location of these objects. Using measures of behavior and brain electricity in male and female humans, we demonstrate this to be the case. Sensory and perceptual processing of reward-associated visual features is facilitated such that attention is deployed to objects characterized by these features in subsequent experimental trials. This is the case even when participants know that a strategic decision to attend to reward-associated features will be counterproductive and result in suboptimal performance. Other results show that the magnitude of visual bias created by reward is predicted by the response to reward feedback in anterior cingulate cortex, an area with strong connections to dopaminergic structures in the midbrain. These results demonstrate that reward has an impact on vision that is independent of its role in the strategic establishment of endogenous attention. We suggest that reward acts to change visual salience and thus plays an important and undervalued role in attentional control.

Where is the chocolate? Rapid spatial orienting toward stimuli associated with primary rewards

“…More specifically, we demonstrated that stimuli associated with primary reward can involuntary orient spatial attention and that this modulation critically depends on the properties of the primary reward. These results are consistent with recent experiments testing the incentive salience hypothesis in humans, and showing involuntary attentional interference effects by rewardassociated cue (Anderson et al, 2011a(Anderson et al, , 2011bHickey & van Zoest, 2012;Hickey et al, 2010aHickey et al, , 2010bHickey et al, , 2011. Critically, our results also revealed that this attentional capture is independent of the stimuli's low-level perceptual characteristics.…”

“…This rapid effect of reward is consistent with Hickey et al (2010a)s electrophysiological findings showing that brain activity is influenced at early stages by the perception of reward-associated stimuli. Our findings suggest that this modulation of early brain activity could be translated in a similarly rapid modulation of involuntary attentional orienting which would influence behavior.…”

“…This task interference shows that attention is oriented toward reward-associated stimuli even when participants are asked to orient their attention toward a different target. Hickey et al, 2010aHickey et al, , 2010bHickey et al, , 2011 demonstrated that attention is oriented toward a feature associated with secondary reward even when it is counterproductive for the current participants performance, therefore providing empirical evidence suggesting that attention is orientated toward reward-associated stimuli independently of voluntary controlled processes. If this is the case, then attentional modulation of the rewardassociated stimuli should rapidly occur at early stages of information processing.…”

“…If this is the case, then attentional modulation of the rewardassociated stimuli should rapidly occur at early stages of information processing. Electrophysiological results reported by Hickey et al (2010a) suggest that this is indeed the case. They showed that reward-associated features lead to enhanced brain activity during early stages of visual processing.…”

“…This hypothesis has recently been tested in humans (Anderson, Laurent, & Yantis, 2011a, 2011bHickey, Chelazzi, & Theeuwes, 2010a, 2010b, 2011. In Anderson et al (2011aAnderson et al ( ), (2011b, a simple visual stimulus (i.e., a one-color shape) was associated with a secondary reward (i.e., a visual monetary symbol).…”