Reward creates oculomotor salience

Abstract

Magazine R219of the population (which is now an evolutionary response). Wouldn't that be a good way of studying evolution in action over a few generations?One would think so. In particular, it is possible to measure all three components of the breeder's equation, and see directly whether R = h 2 S. But, quite often, it appears that R does not equal h 2 S. For example, a study on antler size in red deer showed that red deer with larger antlers had more offspring than red deer with smaller antlers, and antler size has a high heritability. Yet no response to selection, R, could be detected. How is this possible? The problem is not in the measurement of h 2 or R, but in the measurement of S. In artificial selection, where individuals are selected by the experimenter on the basis of their value of the trait, it is the trait itself that determines reproduction, and any source of variation in the trait will affect which individuals are chosen. But, in studies of natural selection, all that is seen is a correlation between measured fitness and the trait. In this case, therefore, the trait itself does not necessarily cause the fitness differences. An environmental insult, such as disease, could simultaneously lower the trait value and also survivorship and/or reproduction, in other words, fitness. The consequence is that it is possible to have a trait-fitness correlation, arising from a purely environmental covariance, which creates the false impression of selection, without there being any correlation between fitness and the breeding value of the trait. What matters is the genetic correlation between fitness and the trait.Where can I find out more?

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.…”

“…Our results suggest that such attentional modulation is driven by initial orienting. This is congruent with eye tracking studies showing that reward-associated stimuli were more likely to draw initial gaze (Anderson & Yantis, 2012a;Hickey & van Zoest, 2012;Theeuwes & Belopolsky, 2012), but that the gaze is not maintained at this location for a longer period of time compared to neutral stimuli (Theeuwes & Belopolsky, 2012). This is consistent with the idea that involuntary attentional orienting toward cue-associated stimuli is an adaptive mechanism that allows the organism to rapidly orient its attentional resources toward the reward-related location, thereby increasing the possibility of obtaining rewards (Hickey et al, 2011).…”

“…Research conducted in animals supports the hypothesis of initial orienting by showing an attentional bias generated by faster eye movements toward reward-associated stimuli (Matsumoto & Hikosaka, 2009). Recent studies showed similar results in humans, by demonstrating that reward associated stimuli were more likely to draw initial gaze than neutral stimuli (Anderson and Yantis, 2012a;Hickey & van Zoest, 2012;Theeuwes & Belopolsky, 2012), but the gaze is not maintained at that location for a longer period (Theeuwes & Belopolsky, 2012). In the present study, we further investigated the role of initial orienting and disengagement in attentional orienting toward reward-associated stimuli, by using an attentional paradigm that has been specifically designed to investigate this issue (i.e., spatial cuing task; Posner & Cohen, 1984).…”

Perceptual Competition Promotes Suppression of Reward Salience in Behavioral Selection and Neural Representation

“…In our study, the observers were aware of the attribute of the target (e.g., the steep orientation) and the to-be-ignored distractor (e.g., the shallow orientation), making the top-down control ready to initiate the suppression mechanism. However, an initial attraction to the distractor with high reward salience followed by strong suppression could be an alternative mechanism for our findings, as indicated by a study using time-sensitive measures of eye movement (Hickey and van Zoest, 2012). Notably, the suppression of reward salience reduced its impairment on performance did not eliminate the physical salience effect on the search performance.…”

Reward Anticipation Is Differentially Modulated by Varenicline and Nicotine in Smokers

“…The ACC has been implicated in reward-mediated changes in attentional salience (Hickey and van Zoest, 2012) via an interaction with the MCL DA system (Berridge and Robinson, 1998). Enhanced ACC activation is associated with salient, attention-capturing events, even in the absence of competing stimuli.…”