Learning to A=end: The Influence of Gain Vs. Loss on A=en0on Capture for Younger and Older Adults Jamie Naylor, Derek Araujo, & Dr. Mei-­‐Ching Lien School of Psychological Science, College of Liberal Arts Our brains eagerly seek out rewards and, accordingly, reward onen influences our aVen;on. Anderson, Laurent, and Yan;s (2011) recently showed that s;muli can capture our aVen;on involuntarily as a consequence of previous reward learning, even aner they no longer signal reward. In that study, par;cipants performed a training phase then a test phase. During the training phase, par;cipants determined the orienta;on of a bar within the target color circle (red or green, occurring equally onen within each block). They received visual feedback indica;ng a monetary reward aner 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). Par;cipants were not told about this associa;on. During the test phase, the task changed. Par;cipants determined the orienta;on 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) rela;ve to neutral color condi;on. Methods Par0cipants: 24 Younger adults (18-­‐23 years old) and 9 older adults (60-­‐80 years old) each performed two phases: training then test. Training Phase: Par;cipants indicated the orienta;on of a bar within a red or green circle by pressing “V” for ver;cal and “H” for horizontal. +5
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Auditory Feedback
Visual Feedback Blank TIME
un;l Response (“correct”, “incorrect”) Gain/Loss
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400, 500 or 600 ms
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Gain vs. Loss: To provide incen;ves for making correct responses, we used the following gain/loss schedule for half of the par;cipants. For the other par;cipants, the assignment was reversed. They were not explicitly informed of this gain/loss schedule. Red target color: high gain (5 points) for correct responses : Training Phase
: Test Phase
low gain (1 point) for incorrect response Green target color: low loss (-­‐1 point) for correct responses high loss (-­‐5 points) for incorrect response Test Phase: Instead of searching for color (red/green) as in the training phase, par;cipants now searched for the unique diamond shape, indica;ng the orienta;on of the line inside (“V” for ver;cal, “H” for horizontal). +
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The Present Study TIME
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Tone Feedback for 1000-­‐1200 ms
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Whereas Anderson et al. (2011) focused exclusively on reward (gain), the present study aimed to examine whether capture also occurs for loss-­‐
Target Display: Contained no distractor color or one distractor color associated s0muli. In addi;on, we examined whether the effect of gain vs. (previously gain-­‐associated color, loss-­‐associated color, or neutral loss on a=en0on capture changed with age. color). Each condi;on was equally likely and intermixed within blocks. Previous studies have found that older adults show enhanced processing Valida0on o
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earning of posi;ve s;muli rela;ve to nega;ve s;muli whereas younger adults show the reverse paVern (e.g., Knight et al., 2007). At t
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mplicitly learned the color and gain/loss associa;on. Thus, the difference in Predic0ons response ;me (RT) between the gain vs. loss trials (e.g., taking more ;me to avoid loss) should be larger for the second half of the training than the The posi;vity bias for older adults would make them more suscep;ble to first half of the training. capture by gain-­‐associated s;muli than loss-­‐associated s;muli, whereas a References nega;vity bias for younger adults would make them more suscep;ble to Anderson BA, Laurent PA, Yan;s S (2011) Value-­‐driven aVen;onal capture. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 108: 10367–
capture by loss-­‐associated s;muli.
10371. Knight, M., Seymour, T. L., Gaunt, J. T., Baker, C., Nesmith, K., & Mather, M. (2007). Aging and goal-­‐directed emo;onal aVen;on: Distrac;on reverses emo;onal biases. EmoEon, 7, 705–714. Training Phase Results Older Adults
Younger A
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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 interac;on between distractor type (gain vs. loss) and session, F(1,30) =2.77, p<.11, was not significant (perhaps due to low sample size). Response Time (in ms)
Value-­‐Driven A=en0on Capture Test Phase Results Older Adults
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The interac;on 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 condi;ons, Fs(1,23)≥4.41, ps<0.5, replica;ng Anderson et al.’s (2011) finding with reward. However, the gain-­‐associated color was non-­‐significantly 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 condi;ons, Fs(1,8)≥5.40, ps<0.5. Unlike younger adults, older adults were 20-­‐ms slower for the loss-­‐associated color than the gain-­‐associated color, but this difference did not reach significance, F<1.0 (perhaps due to low sample size). Tenta0ve Conclusions The present study examined whether irrelevant s;muli can capture our aVen;on involuntarily as a consequence of gain vs. loss learning. While we are s;ll collec;ng data, these preliminary data tenta;vely suggest that (a) loss does influence aVen;on just like gain, and (b) there are age-­‐related differences in the effect of gain vs. loss on aVen;on capture. However, the current data are inconsistent with the previously reported nega;vity bias for younger adults (slow RT when the distractor color was previously loss-­‐associated) and posi;vity 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.