Approach and avoidance movements modulate value-driven attentional capture.

Jihyun Suh; Richard A. Abrams

doi:10.1037/xhp0000706

Motivational salience guides attention to valuable and threatening stimuli: Evidence from behaviour and fMRI

10.31234/osf.io/adxwy ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Haena Kim ◽

Namrata Nanavaty ◽

Humza Ahmed ◽

Vani Mathur ◽

Brian A. Anderson

Keyword(s):

Associative Learning ◽

Attentional Capture ◽

Attentional Control ◽

Brain Activation ◽

Underlying Mechanism ◽

Neural Correlates ◽

Approach And Avoidance ◽

Motivational Salience ◽

Opposing Effects ◽

Open Question

Rewarding and aversive outcomes have opposing effects on behaviour, facilitating approach and avoidance, although we need to accurately anticipate each type of outcome in order to behave effectively. Attention is biased toward stimuli that have been learned to predict either type of outcome, and it remains an open question whether such orienting is driven by separate systems for value- and threat-based orienting or whether there exists a common underlying mechanism of attentional control driven by motivational salience. Here we provide a direct comparison of the neural correlates of value- and threat-based attentional capture following associative learning. Across multiple measures of behaviour and brain activation, our findings overwhelmingly support a motivational salience account of the control of attention. We conclude that there exists a core mechanism of experience-dependent attentional control driven by motivational salience, and that prior characterisations of attention as being value-driven or supporting threat monitoring need to be revisited.

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Supplemental Material for Approach and Avoidance Movements Modulate Value-Driven Attentional Capture

Journal of Experimental Psychology Human Perception & Performance ◽

10.1037/xhp0000706.supp ◽

2019 ◽

Keyword(s):

Attentional Capture ◽

Approach And Avoidance

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I Want to Be Like You

Social Psychology ◽

10.1027/1864-9335/a000090 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 43 (3) ◽

pp. 115-126 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Christina Matschke ◽

Kai Sassenberg

Keyword(s):

Social Identity ◽

Identity Development ◽

Self Regulation ◽

Active Role ◽

Social Identification ◽

Social Self ◽

Approach And Avoidance ◽

Internal Motivation ◽

Avoidance Strategies ◽

Social Identity Development

Entering a new group provides the potential of forming a new social identity. Starting from self-regulation models, we propose that goals (e.g., internal motivation to enter the group), strategies (e.g., approach and avoidance strategies), and events (e.g., the group’s response) affect the development of the social self. In two studies we manipulated the group’s response (acceptance vs. rejection) and assessed internal motivation as well as approach and avoidance strategies. It was expected, and we found, that when newcomers are accepted, their use of approach strategies (but not avoidance strategies) facilitates social identification. In line with self-completion theory, for highly internally motivated individuals approach strategies facilitated social identification even upon rejection. The results underline the active role of newcomers in their social identity development.

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Instruction-Based Approach-Avoidance Effects

Experimental Psychology (formerly Zeitschrift für Experimentelle Psychologie) ◽

10.1027/1618-3169/a000282 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 62 (3) ◽

pp. 161-169 ◽

Cited By ~ 31

Author(s):

Pieter Van Dessel ◽

Jan De Houwer ◽

Anne Gast ◽

Colin Tucker Smith

Keyword(s):

Implicit Association Test ◽

Avoidance Training ◽

Social Groups ◽

Implicit Association ◽

Approach And Avoidance ◽

Evaluative Priming ◽

Blacks And Whites ◽

Approach Avoidance ◽

Implicit And Explicit ◽

Explicit Measures

Prior research suggests that repeatedly approaching or avoiding a certain stimulus changes the liking of this stimulus. We investigated whether these effects of approach and avoidance training occur also when participants do not perform these actions but are merely instructed about the stimulus-action contingencies. Stimulus evaluations were registered using both implicit (Implicit Association Test and evaluative priming) and explicit measures (valence ratings). Instruction-based approach-avoidance effects were observed for relatively neutral fictitious social groups (i.e., Niffites and Luupites), but not for clearly valenced well-known social groups (i.e., Blacks and Whites). We conclude that instructions to approach or avoid stimuli can provide sufficient bases for establishing both implicit and explicit evaluations of novel stimuli and discuss several possible reasons for why similar instruction-based approach-avoidance effects were not found for valenced well-known stimuli.

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