Authors
Poppy Watson, Daniel Pearson, Michelle Chow, Jan Theeuwes, Reinout W Wiers, Steven B Most, Mike E Le Pelley
Publication date
2019/8
Journal
Psychological science
Volume
30
Issue
8
Pages
1174-1185
Publisher
Sage Publications
Description
Physically salient but task-irrelevant distractors can capture attention in visual search, but resource-dependent, executive-control processes can help reduce this distraction. However, it is not only physically salient stimuli that grab our attention: Recent research has shown that reward history also influences the likelihood that stimuli will capture attention. Here, we investigated whether resource-dependent control processes modulate the effect of reward on attentional capture, much as for the effect of physical salience. To this end, we used eye tracking with a rewarded visual search task and compared performance under conditions of high and low working memory load. In two experiments, we demonstrated that oculomotor capture by high-reward distractor stimuli is enhanced under high memory load. These results highlight the role of executive-control processes in modulating distraction by reward-related stimuli …
Total citations
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