Abstract
Traditional models of attention include exogenous attention mechanisms driven by perceptual saliency and endogenous selective attention mechanisms based on goal-relevant information. However, recent adult studies have identified a third mechanism known as value-driven attentional capture (VDAC). Consistently associating a stimulus with a reward generates an attention bias so that the rewarded stimulus is more likely to be attended, even when no longer task-relevant (Anderson, et al. 2011). Despite growing evidence for this VDAC mechanism in adulthood, its developmental trajectory is currently unknown. Twenty-six 9–12-month-old infants (anticipated N=75) completed a modified VDAC task (Figure 1). During learning, infants searched for a target color within a six-item array. Infants saw a high-value reward (a happy face; N=13) or a low-value reward (a neutral face; N=13) immediately after looking at the target color. At test, infants viewed novel shape arrays, with one dynamic target shape and five static distractor shapes. Critically, during half of the test trials (reward-present trials), one distractor appeared in the previously rewarded color. We examined VDAC by comparing eye movement response times during reward-absent trials vs. reward-present trials. Infants were faster to orient to the rewarded target by the end of the learning phase (MBegin=874.04 ms, SD=385.76 ms, MEnd=615.68 ms, SD=256.84 ms; p= .011), indicating learning of the target-reward association. At test, infants in the high reward condition showed slower orienting to the target during reward-present trials (MPresent= 871.69 ms, SD= 237.44 ms; MAbsent= 768.57 ms, SD= 161.20 ms). Infants in the low reward condition were instead faster to orient to the target during reward-present trials (MPresent= 823.16 ms, SD= 314.24 ms; MAbsent= 850.78 ms, SD= 234.35 ms). These preliminary data suggest that reward learning among 9–12-month-old infants may elicit an attention bias such that the rewarded stimulus subsequently captures attention and slows responses to a perceptually salient target.
Acknowledgement: Tulane University School of Science and Engineering