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Mounting evidence has shown that a task-irrelevant, previously reward-associated stimulus can capture attention even when attending to this stimulus impairs the processing of the current target. Here we investigate whether a stimulus that merely signals the availability of reward could capture attention and interfere with target processing when it is located outside of attentional focus. In three experiments, a target was always presented at the bottom of the lower visual field to attract focal attention. A distractor signalling high or low reward availability for the current trial was presented around the target with a variable distance between them. This distractor was task-irrelevant; getting distracted by it could potentially result in an omission of reward. For the high-reward condition, the distractor located adjacent to the target more severely interfered with target processing than the distractor at a relatively distant location; for …