Value-Modulated Attentional Capture is Found Only in Individuals That Show Awareness of the Repeatedly Presented Stimulus-Value Association and Sustains With Belief in the Association Alone

Value-modulated attentional capture (VMAC) is where a stimulus captures more attention than it otherwise would because of its association with a valuable outcome. Previous research has investigated whether there is a relationship between VMAC and awareness of the stimulus-value association. However, this research has been limited by the awareness tests used and obtained mixed findings on whether VMAC is found in participants who do not show awareness of the stimulus-value association and whether VMAC in these participants differs in magnitude from VMAC in participants who show awareness of the association. We present three experiments that used a multi-trial “generative” awareness test where participants were asked to predict the valuable outcome across multiple awareness test trials in the absence of outcome feedback. Evidence of VMAC was found only in aware participants. Furthermore, evidence of VMAC in these participants was observed in test phase trials where outcome feedback was not received, but only once participants received information (from a message presented after the first test block) that could be used as confirmation that the training phase associations, responsible for establishing this effect, were still in operation. VMAC did not sustain under test phase conditions that extinguished these associations and provided explicit reward feedback. Our findings suggest that after a stimulus-value association has been repeatedly presented, VMAC is found only in those that show awareness of the stimulus-value association, and belief that the association is still in effect is sufficient to sustain it in the absence of explicit feedback about the outcome.