On the distinction between value-driven attention and selection history: Evidence from individuals with depressive symptoms

Abstract

When predictive of extrinsic reward as targets, stimuli rapidly acquire the ability to automatically capture attention. Attentional biases for former targets of visual search can also develop without reward feedback, but typically require much longer training. These learned biases towards former targets are often conceptualized within a single framework, and might differ merely in degree. That is, both are the result of the reinforcement of selection history, with extrinsic reward for correct report of the target providing greater reinforcement than correct report alone. A direct test of this shared mechanisms hypothesis is lacking, however. Recent evidence demonstrates that depressed individuals present with blunted value-driven attentional biases. Based on the shared mechanisms hypothesis, we predicted that depressed individuals would similarly show blunted attentional biases for former targets following unrewarded training. To the contrary, however, we found that the effects of selection history on attention were robust and equivalent between individuals experiencing depressive symptoms and control participants, while attentional capture by previously reward-associated stimuli was blunted in depressed individuals. Our results suggest a qualitative distinction between the effects of reward history and the effects of selection history on attention, with depressive symptoms impairing the former while leaving the latter unaffected.

Reward history but not search history explains value-driven attentional capture

“…The presence of reward-signaling stimuli slowed down responses compared with their absence, but there was no difference toward lower reward in their first experiment or an unrewarded condition in their second experiment. These and other findings confirm that stimuli that appeared simultaneously with nonrewarded target stimuli can bias attention later (Anderson, Chiu, DiBartolo, & Leal, 2017;Sha & Jiang, 2016;Wang, Yu, & Zhou, 2013). On the other hand a number of experiments did not find any search-driven attentional capture (Anderson et al, 2011a(Anderson et al, , 2014bLaurent, Hall, Anderson, & Yantis, 2015;Qi, Zeng, Ding, & Li, 2013).…”

Test–retest reliability of value-driven attentional capture

“…(a) Correlations between the RT costs associated with the high-value distractor (relative to distractor-absent trials), observed at Visit 1 and Visit 2. (b) Correlations between the percentages of trials on which the high-value distractor was the initially fixated stimulus, observed at Visit 1 and Visit 2 fixations to a previously reward-associated stimulus could offer a window on meaningful changes in susceptibility to value-driven attentional capture over time, a construct that has been linked to a variety of psychopathologies (Anderson et al, 2013;Anderson, Chiu, et al, 2017;Anderson, Kronemer, et al, 2016;Anderson, Leal, et al, 2014;Sali et al, 2018).…”

“…Recent evidence points to a possible role for value-driven attention in psychopathology. The degree to which an arbitrary reward cue impairs performance in an attention task has been linked to drug dependence (Anderson, Faulkner, Rilee, Yantis, & Marvel, 2013;Anderson, Kronemer, Rilee, Sacktor, & Marvel, 2016; see Anderson, 2016b, for a review), HIV-risk behaviors (Anderson, Kronemer, et al, 2016), depression (Anderson, Chiu, DiBartolo, & Leal, 2017;Anderson, Leal, et al, 2014), and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (Sali, Anderson, Yantis, Mostofsky, & Rosch, 2018). Attention to reward covaries with the presence of these psychopathologies and may play a role in the observed symptomology.…”

“…In the present study, we explore the test-retest reliability of two different measures of attentional capture by arbitrary reward cues. Given the breadth with which such measures have been linked to different psychopathologies (Anderson et al, 2013;Anderson, Chiu, et al, 2017;Anderson, Kronemer, et al, 2016;Anderson, Leal, et al, 2014;Sali et al, 2018), in addition to the potential nonclinical uses in predicting a broader range of life outcomes, we explored a general measure of reward-related attentional bias rather than a measure that uses stimuli particular to any one psychopathology (e.g., drug cues in a drug-dependent population).…”

Reward differentially interacts with physical salience in feature-based attention

“…One the one hand, reward-associated stimulus was found to elicit quantitatively similar attentional capture effect as previous selected target during training (Sha & Jiang, 2016 ). On the other hand, reward association and selection history have also been shown to have distinct effects (Anderson & Halpern, 2017 ; Anderson, Chiu, DiBartolo, & Leal, 2017 ). The present study minimized the contribution of selection history in the first place, not only by adopting equivalent training for the coherent and random motion stimuli, but also de-emphasizing explicit selection during training because participants were presented with one stimulus at a time and responded to the change of speed.…”