Motivated suppression of value- and threat-modulated attentional capture

Prospective Distractor Information Reduces Reward-Related Attentional Capture

Motivationally salient stimuli, such as those associated with reward, can automatically gain attentional prioritisation - even when individuals are motivated to ignore such stimuli. This 'attentional bias for reward' has often been interpreted as evidence for involuntary Pavlovian 'sign tracking' behaviour. The prioritisation of reward-signalling distractors may additionally reflect a drive to gain information about the state of the world, irrespective of the particular reward that is being signalled. In the current study we assessed whether forewarning participants on each trial as to the upcoming features of a distractor would reduce reward-related attentional capture. This manipulation reduces the information provided by the distractor, without affecting the magnitude of the signalled reward. Using eye tracking in Experiment 1, we found that reward-related attentional capture was virtually eliminated when participants were informed of the upcoming distractor colour (relative to the baseline condition when no information was provided). In Experiment 2, using a response-time version of the task, we again found a significant reduction in reward-related attentional capture when participants received information about the colour of an upcoming distractor, or information about the value of the upcoming reward. Finally, in Experiment 3 we assessed whether participants were using the pre-trial information to strategically inhibit attention to the upcoming distractor colour. The results of these experiments are discussed within the context of information-seeking accounts of reward-related attentional capture effects.

Trichotomy revisited: A monolithic theory of attentional control

The control of attention was long held to reflect the influence of two competing mechanisms of assigning priority, one goal-directed and the other stimulus-driven. Learning-dependent influences on the control of attention that could not be attributed to either of those two established mechanisms of control gave rise to the concept of selection history and a corresponding third mechanism of attentional control. The trichotomy framework that ensued has come to dominate theories of attentional control over the past decade, replacing the historical dichotomy. In this theoretical review, I readily affirm that distinctions between the influence of goals, salience, and selection history are substantive and meaningful, and that abandoning the dichotomy between goal-directed and stimulus-driven mechanisms of control was appropriate. I do, however, question whether a theoretical trichotomy is the right answer to the problem posed by selection history. If we reframe the influence of goals and selection history as different flavors of memory-dependent modulations of attentional priority and if we characterize the influence of salience as a consequence of insufficient competition from such memory-dependent sources of priority, it is possible to account for a wide range of attention-related phenomena with only one mechanism of control. The monolithic framework for the control of attention that I propose offers several concrete advantages over a trichotomy framework, which I explore here.

Reliably Measuring Learning-Dependent Distractor Suppression with Eye Tracking

In the field of psychological science, behavioral performance in computer-based cognitive tasks often exhibits poor reliability. The absence of reliable measures of cognitive processes contributes to non-reproducibility in the field and impedes investigation of individual differences. Specifically in visual search paradigms, response time-based measures have shown poor test-retest reliability and internal consistency across attention capture and distractor suppression, but one study has demonstrated the potential for oculomotor measures to exhibit superior reliability. Therefore, in this study, we investigated three datasets to compare the reliability of learning-dependent distractor suppression measured via distractor fixations (oculomotor capture) and latency to fixate the target (fixation times). Our findings reveal superior split-half reliability of oculomotor capture compared to that of fixation times regardless of the critical distractor comparison, with the reliability of oculomotor capture in most cases falling within the range that is acceptable for the investigation of individual differences. We additionally find that older adults have superior oculomotor reliability compared with young adults, potentially addressing a significant limitation in the aging literature of high variability in response time measures due to slower responses. Our findings highlight the utility of measuring eye movements in the pursuit of reliable indicators of distractor processing and the need to further test and develop additional measures in other sensory domains to maximize statistical power, reliability, and reproducibility.

Observational learning of threat-related attentional bias

Attentional bias to threat has been almost exclusively examined after participants experienced repeated pairings between a conditioned stimulus (CS) and an aversive unconditioned stimulus (US). This study aimed to determine whether threat-related attentional capture can result from observational learning, when participants acquire knowledge of the aversive qualities of a stimulus without themselves experiencing aversive outcomes. Non-clinical young-adult participants (N = 38) first watched a video of an individual (the demonstrator) performing a Pavlovian conditioning task in which one colour was paired with shock (CS+) and another colour was neutral (CS-). They then carried out visual search for a shape-defined target. Oculomotor measures evidenced an attentional bias toward the CS+ colour, suggesting that threat-related attentional capture can ensue from observational learning. Exploratory analyses also revealed that this effect was positively correlated with empathy for the demonstrator. Our findings extend empirical and theoretical knowledge about threat-driven attention and provide valuable insights to better understand the formation of anxiety disorders.

Reward History Modulates the Processing of Task-Irrelevant Emotional Faces in a Demanding Task

The aim of the current study was to examine how reward-associated emotional facial distractors could capture attentional resources in a demanding visual task using event-related potentials (ERPs). In the learning phase, a high- or low-reward probability was paired with angry, happy, or neutral faces. Then, in the test phase, participants performed a face-irrelevant task with no reward at stake, in which they needed to discriminate the length of two lines presented in the center of the screen while faces that were taken from the learning phase were used as distractors presented in the periphery. The behavioral results revealed no effect of distractor emotional valence since the emotional information was task-irrelevant. The ERP results in the test phase revealed a significant main effect of distractor emotional valence for the parieto-occipital P200 (170-230 ms); the mean amplitudes in both the angry- and happy-face conditions were more positive than the neutral-face condition. Moreover, we found that the high-reward association enhanced both the N170 (140-180 ms) and EPN (260-330 ms) relative to the low-reward association condition. Finally, the N2pc (270-320 ms) also exhibited enhanced neural activity in the high-reward condition compared to the low-reward condition. The absence of emotional effects indicated that task-irrelevant emotional facial stimuli did not impact behavioral or neural responses in this highly demanding task. However, reward-associated information was processed when attention was directed elsewhere, suggesting that the processing of reward-associated information worked more in an automatic way, irrespective of the top-down task demand.

Undeserved reward but not inevitable loss biases attention: Personal control moderates evaluative attentional biases in the additional-singleton paradigm

It is important for organisms to notice signals of opportunities (i.e., chances for performance-dependent reward) and dangers (i.e., performance-dependent risks of loss). Attentional biases towards opportunity and danger signals should therefore be functionally valuable. By contrast, the functional value of attentional biases towards signals of performance-independent (i.e., uncontrollable) rewards or losses is not obvious. The present study compares attentional biases towards positive and negative stimuli, depending on whether the stimuli signal performance-dependent or performance-independent reward or loss. Specifically, we induced colour-valence associations before engaging participants in an additional-singleton task that measures attentional bias. In the valence-induction phase, one colour signalled a potential reward, and another colour signalled a potential loss; importantly, in one group, rewards and losses were performance-dependent, whereas in another group, they were performance-independent (i.e., seemingly random). In the subsequent additional-singleton task, we found increased additional-singleton effects for colours associated with performance-dependent rewards and losses (i.e., opportunities and dangers). If, however, rewards and losses were performance-independent, the singleton effect was enhanced only for reward but not loss stimuli.

Combined influence of valence and statistical learning on the control of attention II: Evidence from within-domain additivity

Attention is biased in favor of stimuli that signal either threat or reward; this experience-dependent attentional bias develops via associative learning and persists into extinction. Physically salient yet task-irrelevant stimuli are also prioritized by the attention system, but the attentional priority of a physically salient distractor can be suppressed when it appears in a location in which it has been frequently encountered in the past. Similar effects of statistical learning on distractor suppression have been observed for distractors appearing in a predictable color. A pair of recent studies demonstrate that statistically learned distractor suppression and valence-based attentional biases combine additively, suggesting independent influences of learning on attentional priority. One limitation of these prior studies, however, is that the effects of statistical learning were defined with respect to spatial attention and the effects of associative learning with respect to feature-based attention. A strong version of the independence account would predict additive influences on attention even when both sources of priority are represented within a single domain of attentional control, which we tested in the present study. The attentional priority of a distractor was elevated when its color was previously associated with electric shock and reduced when its shape was frequently encountered as a distractor in a prior training phase, with these two influences on priority combining additively. Our findings provide strong evidence for the idea that statistical learning and valance-based associative learning exert independent influences on the control of attention, which has implications for contemporary theories of selection history.

This is a test: Oculomotor capture when the experiment keeps score

Physically salient stimuli are difficult to ignore, frequently eliciting fixations even when they are known to be task-irrelevant. A recent study demonstrated that distractor fixation-contingent auditory feedback was highly effective in reducing the frequency of fixations on such stimuli. The present study explores more specifically what it is about feedback that makes it effective in curbing oculomotor behavior. In one experiment, we removed the immediacy of the feedback by informing participants after each trial via textual feedback if they had fixated the distractor. A comparable reduction in the frequency of oculomotor capture was observed. In a second experiment, we only provided summary feedback concerning the frequency of oculomotor capture after each block of trials. Not only were the benefits of feedback again robustly comparable, but a benefit was observed even in the first block before any feedback had actually been presented. Simply knowing that the frequency of distractor fixations was being monitored was sufficient to substantially reduce the frequency of oculomotor capture. Interestingly, trial-level feedback predominantly reduced the frequency of capture by slowing oculomotor responses, reflecting a speed-accuracy tradeoff, whereas block-wise feedback resulted in a reduction in the frequency of capture with saccadic reaction time equated, reflecting a bona fide improvement in task performance. Our findings have implications for our understanding of the role of motivation, strategy, and selection history in oculomotor control.

Unconscious social relation threats: Invisible boss face biases attention

Threatening stimuli as a kind of salient information often guide attentional orienting. Besides physically threatening stimuli, social threats can also strongly bias attention, even in the absence of conscious awareness. However, the available evidence mainly came from studies on an emotional face. It is unclear whether social relation threats, such as a boss face without emotional expressions, can also direct attentional orienting unconsciously. This study aimed to reveal the extent to which the attentional system has developed to process threatening stimuli by exploring whether invisible social relation threats unconsciously biased attention. We asked graduate and undergraduate students to perform a modified Posner's cue-target task, in which the probe was preceded by a pair of competitive face cues (an advisor's face and another faculty member's face), rendered invisible through continuous flash suppression. Experiment 1a's results showed that the advisor's face reflexively oriented graduate students' spatial attention, which was significantly correlated with subjective social threat evaluation. However, Experiment 1b showed that an invisible advisor's face did not induce the same effect in undergraduate students, as they reported significantly fewer threats from their advisors than graduates. To ensure the robustness of this new effect, we preregistered a replicate study and successfully replicated the above results in Experiments 2a and 2b. Our findings provide evidence for the existence of an attentional orienting bias toward invisible social relation threats. These results suggest that the attentional system evolved to promote the exploration of our visual environment for threatening social relation signals.

Oculomotor feedback rapidly reduces overt attentional capture

People often have limited awareness of the extent to which their attention is captured by salient-but-irrelevant stimuli. In the present study, we examined how providing feedback concerning the frequency of oculomotor capture by such stimuli modulates the control of attention. Our results show that the provision of oculomotor feedback produces a rapid and dramatic decrease in the frequency of distractor fixations. Further probing of this reduction in oculomotor capture by time to fixate the first stimulus revealed further insights into the nature of this experience-dependent effect. A higher frequency of relatively slow fixation latencies was observed in the feedback group, with such responses being generally less prone to capture, reflecting a speed-accuracy tradeoff. Fixations with slower latencies were also associated with a reduced frequency of oculomotor capture in the feedback group, whereas the fastest responses were almost exclusively stimulus-driven across participants and unaffected by feedback. These effects of feedback persisted when feedback was removed and they generalized to novel stimuli. Our findings suggest that, without any instruction concerning how to use the feedback, the oculomotor system defaults to delaying saccadic responses to allow more time for goal-directed influences on selection to come online, reflecting a history-dependent shift in oculomotor processing.

Using aversive conditioning with near-real-time feedback to shape eye movements during naturalistic viewing

Strategically shaping patterns of eye movements through training has manifold promising applications, with the potential to improve the speed and efficiency of visual search, improve the ability of humans to extract information from complex displays, and help correct disordered eye movement patterns. However, training how a person moves their eyes when viewing an image or scene is notoriously difficult, with typical approaches relying on explicit instruction and strategy, which have notable limitations. The present study introduces a novel approach to eye movement training using aversive conditioning with near-real-time feedback. Participants viewed indoor scenes (eight scenes presented over 48 trials) with the goal of remembering those scenes for a later memory test. During viewing, saccades meeting specific amplitude and direction criteria probabilistically triggered an aversive electric shock, which was felt within 50 ms after the eliciting eye movement, allowing for a close temporal coupling between an oculomotor behavior and the feedback intended to shape it. Results demonstrate a bias against performing an initial saccade in the direction paired with shock (Experiment 1) or generally of the amplitude paired with shock (Experiment 2), an effect that operates without apparent awareness of the relationship between shocks and saccades, persists into extinction, and generalizes to the viewing of novel images. The present study serves as a proof of concept concerning the implementation of near-real-time feedback in eye movement training.

Punishment-modulated attentional capture is context specific

Attention prioritizes stimuli previously associated with punishment. Despite the importance of this process for survival and adaptation, the potential generalization of punishment-related attentional biases has been largely ignored in the literature. This study aimed to determine whether stimulus-punishment associations learned in a specific context bias attention in another context (in which the stimulus was never paired with punishment). We examined this issue using an antisaccade task in which participants had to shift their gaze in the opposite direction of a colored square during stimulus-outcome learning. Two contexts and three colors were employed. One color was associated with punishment (i.e., electrical shock) in one context and never paired with punishment in the other context. For a second color, the punishment-context relationship was reversed. A third color never paired with shock in either context (neutral) was included in Experiment 1 but absent in Experiment 2. Participants then performed search for a shape-defined target in an extinction phase (in which no shock was delivered) in which attentional bias for the colors was assessed. Context was manipulated via the background image upon which the stimuli were presented. In each of the two experiments, a bias to selectively orient toward the color that had been associated with punishment in the current context was observed, suggesting that punishment-modulated attentional priority is context specific.

Can salient stimuli really be suppressed?

Although it is often assumed that a physically salient stimulus automatically captures attention even when it is irrelevant to a current task, the signal-suppression hypothesis proposes that observers can actively suppress a salient-but-irrelevant distractor. However, it is still unknown whether suppression alone (i.e., without target enhancement) is potent enough to override attentional capture by a salient singleton in an otherwise-homogeneous background. The current study addressed this issue. On search trials (70% of trials), participants searched for a shape target on trials that either did or did not contain an irrelevant color singleton. The effects of learning to suppress the color of the singleton were examined on interleaved probe trials (30% of trials). On these trials, participants searched for a probe target letter; those letters were presented on four ovals (one colored oval and three gray ovals). Each colored oval was a singleton that was one of three types: the color of the distractor on search trials, the color of the target on search trials, or a neutral color that had not appeared on search trials. Responses were faster for the probe target on a neutral-colored or target-colored item than on a gray-colored item; however, responses were slower for the probe target on a distractor-colored item than on a gray-colored item. The results demonstrate a powerful suppression mechanism overriding attentional capture by a singleton item.

Selection history is relative

Visual attention can be tuned to specific features to aid in visual search. The way in which these search strategies are established and maintained is flexible, reflecting goal-directed attentional control, but can exert a persistent effect on selection that remains even when these strategies are no longer advantageous, reflecting an attentional bias driven by selection history. Apart from feature-specific search, recent studies have shown that attention can be tuned to target-nontarget relationships. Here we tested whether a relational search strategy continues to bias attention in a subsequent task, where the relationally better color and former target color both serve as distractors (Experiment 1) or as potential targets (Experiment 2). We demonstrate that a relational bias can persist in a subsequent task in which color serves as a task-irrelevant feature, both impairing and facilitating visual search performance. Our findings extend our understanding of the relational account of attentional control and the nature of selection history effects on attention.

The influence of threat and aversive motivation on conflict processing in the Stroop task

Motivated attention can be driven by the desire to maximize gains or escape punishment. In the Stroop task, when rewards can be obtained by responding quickly to certain colors, corresponding color words are prioritized and produce enhanced interference, suggesting transfer of an attentional bias from color hues to color words. In the present study, we replicated this transfer effect using reward and conducted a parallel experiment exchanging the prospect of reward (appetitive motivation) with the opportunity to avert punishment (aversive motivation). Participants were required to identify the color (hue) of color words and received electric shocks for responses to particular hues that were slow or incorrect. Shock-related words similarly impaired color-ink naming performance. In contrast to prior studies with reward, however, responding to hues associated with shock was also impaired, with threat producing an increase in error rate that ironically resulted in more frequent shocks. Our results suggest that aversive and appetitive motivation affect attention to task-relevant information differently, although each produces a common bias in automatic stimulus processing presumably driven by valence.