Learning to Attend: The Influence of Gain Vs. Loss on Attention Capture for Younger and Older Adults
Jamie Naylor, Derek Araujo, & Dr. Mei-Ching Lien
School of Psychological Science, College of Liberal Arts
Training Phase: Participants indicated the orientation of a bar within a red
or green circle by pressing “V” for vertical and “H” for horizontal.
+
+
+
+5
Total +10
Fixation
400, 500 or 600 ms
Target Display
until Response
Auditory Feedback
(“correct”, “incorrect”)
500 ms
Visual Feedback
Gain/Loss
2000 ms
Blank
500 ms
TIME
Gain vs. Loss: To provide incentives for making correct responses, we
used the following gain/loss schedule for half of the participants. For
the other participants, the assignment was reversed. They were not
explicitly informed of this gain/loss schedule.
high gain (5 points) for correct responses
low gain (1 point) for incorrect response
Green target color: low loss (-1 point) for correct responses
high loss (-5 points) for incorrect response
+
+
The Present Study
Previous studies have found that older adults show enhanced processing of
positive stimuli relative to negative stimuli whereas younger adults show
the reverse pattern (e.g., Knight et al., 2007).
Predictions
The positivity bias for older adults would make them more susceptible to
capture by gain-associated stimuli than loss-associated stimuli, whereas a
negativity bias for younger adults would make them more susceptible to
capture by loss-associated stimuli.
900
800
700
Fixation
1000-1200 ms
Target Display
until Response
Tone Feedback for
Incorrect Response
100 ms
TIME
Target Display: Contained no distractor color or one distractor color
(previously gain-associated color, loss-associated color, or neutral
color). Each condition was equally likely and intermixed within blocks.
Validation of Learning
At the end of the training phase, we expect that participants have implicitly
learned the color and gain/loss association. Thus, the difference in
response time (RT) between the gain vs. loss trials (e.g., taking more time
to avoid loss) should be larger for the second half of the training than the
first half of the training.
References
Anderson BA, Laurent PA, Yantis S (2011) Value-driven attentional capture. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 108: 10367–
10371.
Knight, M., Seymour, T. L., Gaunt, J. T., Baker, C., Nesmith, K., & Mather, M. (2007). Aging and goal-directed
emotional attention: Distraction reverses emotional biases. Emotion, 7, 705–714.
24 ms
63 ms
1,300
1,200
1,100
1,000
First Half
Test Phase: Instead of searching for color (red/green) as in the training
phase, participants now searched for the unique diamond shape, indicating
the orientation of the line inside (“V” for vertical, “H” for horizontal).
Whereas Anderson et al. (2011) focused exclusively on reward (gain), the
present study aimed to examine whether capture also occurs for lossassociated stimuli. In addition, we examined whether the effect of gain vs.
loss on attention capture changed with age.
32 ms
Second Half
First Half
Second Half
The RT difference between gain and loss was numerically larger for the
second half of the trials than the first half, as predicted, though the
interaction between distractor type (gain vs. loss) and session, F(1,30)
=2.77, p<.11, was not significant (perhaps due to low sample size).
Test Phase Results
Older Adults
Younger Adults
1,000
800
750
Response Time (in ms)
: Test Phase
13 ms
1,400
600
Red target color:
: Training Phase
1,000
Response Time (in ms)
In that study, participants performed a training phase then a test phase.
During the training phase, participants determined the orientation of a bar
within the target color circle (red or green, occurring equally often within
each block). They received visual feedback indicating a monetary reward
after each correct response (Panel A). One color was always associated
with high reward ($0.05) whereas the other color was always associated
with low reward ($0.01). Participants were not told about this association.
During the test phase, the task changed. Participants determined the
orientation of a bar within a unique shape among 5 homogenous shapes of
different colors (Panel B). Even though the color was irrelevant, the
distractor shape containing previously highly-rewarded color slowed target
responses (by 16 ms) relative to neutral color condition.
Participants: 24 Younger adults (18-23 years old) and 9 older adults (60-80
years old) each performed two phases: training then test.
Older Adults
Younger Adults
Response Time (in ms)
Our brains eagerly seek out rewards and, accordingly, reward often
influences our attention. Anderson, Laurent, and Yantis (2011) recently
showed that stimuli can capture our attention involuntarily as a
consequence of previous reward learning, even after they no longer signal
reward.
Training Phase Results
Methods
Response Time (in ms)
Value-Driven Attention Capture
-8 ms
700
650
20 ms
950
900
850
800
600
Gain
Loss
Neutral
No Distractor
Gain
Loss
Neutral
No Distractor
The interaction between age group and distractor type approached
significance, F(3,90)=2.53, p=0.06. For younger adults, RT was significantly
slower for both the gain- and loss-associated colors than the neutral and
no-distractor conditions, Fs(1,23)≥4.41, ps<0.5, replicating Anderson et al.’s
(2011) finding with reward. However, the gain-associated color was nonsignificantly 8-ms slower than for the loss-associated color, F(1,23)=2.92,
p=0.10. For older adults, RT was significantly slower for loss-associated
colors than the neutral and no-distractor conditions, Fs(1,8)≥5.40, ps<0.5.
Unlike younger adults, older adults were 20-ms slower for the lossassociated color than the gain-associated color, but this difference did not
reach significance, F<1.0 (perhaps due to low sample size).
Tentative Conclusions
The present study examined whether irrelevant stimuli can capture our
attention involuntarily as a consequence of gain vs. loss learning. While we
are still collecting data, these preliminary data tentatively suggest that (a)
loss does influence attention just like gain, and (b) there are age-related
differences in the effect of gain vs. loss on attention capture.
However, the current data are inconsistent with the previously reported
negativity bias for younger adults (slow RT when the distractor color was
previously loss-associated) and positivity bias for older adults (slow RT
when distractor color was previously gain-associated). Perhaps the bias is
more of a conscious, value judgment and doesn't extend to unconscious
influences.