Garre-Frutos Francisco, Ariza Adriana, González Felisa
Mind, Brain, and Behavior Research Center (CIMCYC), University of Granada, Granada, Spain.
Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Granada, Granada, Spain.
Psychol Res. 2025 Apr 16;89(3):89. doi: 10.1007/s00426-025-02115-2.
Particular features of the stimuli that predict significant outcomes tend to capture our attention in a rather automatic and inflexible way. This form of attention has been described as a Pavlovian bias that mimics the phenomenon of sign-tracking described in animals, where reward-predictive cues become motivational magnets. In humans, Value-Modulated Attentional Capture (VMAC) refers to a phenomenon where distractors that signal high-value outcomes receive higher attentional priority. VMAC is particularly difficult to extinguish, showing a similar persistence often described in animal sign-tracking. In the present study, we evaluated to what extent VMAC would persist using a more specific extinction procedure than previous research, where instead of removing the possibility of obtaining rewards, the different discriminant stimuli that signal reward equate its value. Furthermore, we manipulated between experiments whether the high-value distractor predicted high-reward and high-punishment contingent to response accuracy (mimicking previous research; Experiment 1) or only high-reward (Experiment 2), and also explored the association of VMAC and its persistence with measures of emotional impulsivity employed in past research. Our results show that when both rewards and punishments are possible, VMAC does not extinguish after an extensive extinction stage, nor is it associated with measures of emotional impulsivity. When punishments were removed, we showed that VMAC gradually extinguished both in response times and accuracy and that the persistence of VMAC was significantly associated with positive urgency. We discussed these results on the potential of punishments to qualitatively alter learning and response strategies employed by participants.
预测重大结果的刺激物的特定特征往往会以一种相当自动且不灵活的方式吸引我们的注意力。这种注意力形式被描述为一种巴甫洛夫式偏差，它模仿了动物中描述的符号追踪现象，即奖励预测线索成为动机磁铁。在人类中，价值调制注意捕获（VMAC）指的是一种现象，即预示高价值结果的干扰物会获得更高的注意优先级。VMAC特别难以消除，表现出与动物符号追踪中经常描述的类似的持续性。在本研究中，我们使用了一种比以往研究更具体的消除程序来评估VMAC在多大程度上会持续存在，在该程序中，不是消除获得奖励的可能性，而是使预示奖励的不同辨别刺激的价值相等。此外，我们在实验之间操纵高价值干扰物是否预测与反应准确性相关的高奖励和高惩罚（模仿以往研究；实验1）或仅预测高奖励（实验2），并且还探讨了VMAC及其持续性与过去研究中使用的情绪冲动性测量指标之间的关联。我们的结果表明，当奖励和惩罚都有可能时，VMAC在广泛的消除阶段后不会消除，也与情绪冲动性测量指标无关。当消除惩罚时，我们表明VMAC在反应时间和准确性方面都逐渐消除，并且VMAC的持续性与积极紧迫性显著相关。我们讨论了这些结果对于惩罚在定性改变参与者所采用的学习和反应策略方面的潜力。
