Motivated suppression of value- and threat-modulated attentional capture.

• DOI: 10.1037/emo0000777
• Publication Date: 2020-07-06T14:54:28Z
• Authors: Laurent Grégoire; Mark K. Britton; Brian A. Anderson
• Keywords: Punishment (psychology); Attentional Bias; PsycINFO; Extinction (optical mineralogy)

Attention prioritizes stimuli previously associated with reward or punishment. The present study examined whether this attentional bias, widely considered to be involuntary and automatic, could suppressed sufficient motivation. Participants performed visual search for a shape-defined target. One color-singleton distractor predicted the possibility of receiving another an electric shock, each outcome occurring infrequently. were informed that likelihood earn avert punishment depended on fast accurate performance, thus providing strong motivation resist distraction by reward- shock-related stimuli. Results revealed reduction in magnitude capture threat-associated distractors, relative neutral persisted into extinction. In second experiment, we replicated suppression value-modulated absence shock condition, confirming did not result from presence threat. Finally, third typical pattern cues using more conventional procedure which suppress valent was low (the rewarded high contingent performance). This demonstrates signals threat can actively (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).