Abstract
Value-modulated attentional capture (VMAC) is where a stimulus attracts attention beyond what it attracts from its physical salience because it has been associated with a valuable outcome. All previous research argues that VMAC arises from Pavlovian conditioning between the stimulus and valuable outcome and not instrumental conditioning whereby the individual attends to the stimulus to obtain information about the upcoming valuable outcome (through an information-seeking process). The current experiments tested these accounts using Le Pelley et al.’s (2015) paradigm. Experiment 1 told participants about the stimulus-value associations and manipulated whether reward feedback was provided. Equal evidence was found for VMAC in both groups, consistent with information seeking. Experiments 2 – 4 adopted Failing and Theeuwes’ (2017) method, manipulating whether reward information was devalued. When participants were informed of the associations, VMAC was sensitive to information devaluation – consistent with information seeking – even when a training phase without any information devaluation was presented first to prevent blocking of Pavlovian responses. When participants were not informed of the associations, VMAC was insensitive to information devaluation – consistent with Pavlovian conditioning – in those who were classified as having become aware of the associations but sensitive to information devaluation in those who were not, with the latter’s responses attributed to their failure to learn from direct conditioning and them acquiring awareness after it was gauged. Our findings suggest that direct Pavlovian conditioning will give rise to VMAC unless there is opportunity for verbal information seeking or the individual can only learn via awareness.