Value-driven attentional capture under load: an ERP study
Résumé
Reward-associated stimuli have been proposed to automatically attract attention, a phenomenon known as
“value-driven attentional capture” (VDAC). However, only
a few studies have investigated whether attentional control could counteract VDAC. We examined VDAC under a
situation known to reduce or eliminate distraction by salient and emotionally negative irrelevant stimuli: high perceptual load. We measured the electrophysiological signatures of attentional selection and suppression (the N2pc
and Pd components) for low- and high-reward distractors under low- and high-load conditions. Under low-load, distraction was greater for high- rather than low-reward distractors and high-reward distractors only evoked an N2pc.
Under high-load, distraction was abolished for low-reward
distractors, but merely reduced for high-reward distractors, and low- but not high-reward distractors evoked a Pd
component. Those results help understanding how perceptual load interacts with reward to determine whether or
not a reward-associated irrelevant stimulus will cause distraction.