Abstract
The relationship between stimulus-driven and goal-directed control in attentional capture is still complicated. Research has primarily involved single participants in isolated settings. The aim of this work was to investigate the impact of social settings and social motivation on attentional capture. In Experiment 1 (n= 60), participants were paired up and conducted a typical attentional capture task together. One participant searched for a salient colour singleton and the other participant for a non-salient shape singleton, each responding to a line element in their targets. The defined target for one participant was the to-be-ignored distractor for the other participant. Participants sat next to one another and shared keyboard. In the ‘together’ condition, both players responded to their targets; in the ‘alone’ condition, the partner was observing only. Replicating previous research, attentional capture was found in the shape-singleton responders, but not in the colour-singleton responders. Critically, when the shape-singleton responders were doing the task together they responded reliably faster and the amount of capture was reduced, compared to when doing they were doing the same task alone. Together, people were less distracted. In Experiment 2 (n= 120), each individual in the pair responded to the shape singleton but either in a competitive (aiming to outperform the partner) or a collaborative setting (working together to outperform other pairs). The results showed that the competitive group responded reliably faster showing reduced capture compared to the collaborative group. Competition resulted in less distraction. In a third on-going experiment, social motivation is manipulated via an experimenter on Zoom to investigate whether similar social contingencies can exist in on-line settings. The present results suggest that attentional capture is very malleable and influenced by higher-level social settings. This work demonstrates that social motivation modulates the relationship between stimulus-driven and goal-directed control, further complicating the debate in attentional capture.