How Does Awareness Modulate Goal-Directed and Stimulus-Driven Shifts of Attention Triggered by Value Learning?

PLoS One. 2016 Aug 2;11(8):e0160469. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0160469. eCollection 2016.

Abstract

In order to behave adaptively, attention can be directed in space either voluntarily (i.e., endogenously) according to strategic goals, or involuntarily (i.e., exogenously) through reflexive capture by salient or novel events. The emotional or motivational value of stimuli can also strongly influence attentional orienting. However, little is known about how reward-related effects compete or interact with endogenous and exogenous attention mechanisms, particularly outside of awareness. Here we developed a visual search paradigm to study subliminal value-based attentional orienting. We systematically manipulated goal-directed or stimulus-driven attentional orienting and examined whether an irrelevant, but previously rewarded stimulus could compete with both types of spatial attention during search. Critically, reward was learned without conscious awareness in a preceding phase where one among several visual symbols was consistently paired with a subliminal monetary reinforcement cue. Our results demonstrated that symbols previously associated with a monetary reward received higher attentional priority in the subsequent visual search task, even though these stimuli and reward were no longer task-relevant, and despite reward being unconsciously acquired. Thus, motivational processes operating independent of conscious awareness may provide powerful influences on mechanisms of attentional selection, which could mitigate both stimulus-driven and goal-directed shifts of attention.

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Attention / physiology*
  • Awareness / physiology*
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Learning / physiology*
  • Male
  • Motivation / physiology*
  • Pattern Recognition, Visual / physiology*
  • Reaction Time / physiology
  • Reward*
  • Task Performance and Analysis

Grants and funding

This work was supported by grants from the Fondation Fyssen (AB); the Marie-Curie CoFund BRIDGE program (AB) from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement n° 267171; the National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR) for the Affective Sciences financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF No 51NF40-104897) and hosted by the University of Geneva; and an award from the Geneva Academic Society (Foremane Fund to PV). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.