Capture or suppression? Attentional allocation upon reward and loss-associated nonsalient distractors are supported by distinct neural mechanisms: An EEG study

• Published in: Neuropsychologia 2021-07, Vol.157, p.107879-107879, Article 107879
• Main Authors: Jiang, Yingjie, Cui, Can, Liu, Mohan, Zhang, Xiuling
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Attentional control; N2pc; Nonsalient distractor; Value-based salience
• ISSN: 0028-3932; 1873-3514
• DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2021.107879

Previous studies suggest that a reward-associated salient distractor can induce bottom-up attentional capture. Hitherto, the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying attentional allocation upon reward/loss associated nonsalient stimulus remain hardly investigated. The present study built the association between nonsalient stimuli and value, and tested it with a decision-making task. Consequently, we examined whether and how reward/loss-associated nonsalient stimuli (as distractors) influenced attentional allocation in a rapid serial visual presentation task. Behavioral analysis showed a significantly faster recognition of target in the loss condition compared to performance in the neutral/reward conditions. Electrophysiological results showed that reward-associated distractors induced a significant Pd component, while loss-associated distractors induced a significantly higher theta oscillation. These results demonstrated that subjects could proactively suppress reward-associated distractors. More importantly, we showed that attentional allocation upon reward/loss-associated nonsalient distractors is supported by distinct neural mechanisms. •Attentional allocation upon reward/loss-associated nonsalient distractors is supported by distinct neural mechanisms.•Reward-associated nonsalient distractor can be actively suppressed.•Theta oscillation was higher in Loss-associated condition.