Poster #7 - High-Value Reward Biases 9-12-month-old Infants’ Visual Search Performance

• In Event: 3-106 - Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Section - Attention, Learning, Memory

Integrative Statement

Traditional models of attention include exogenous attention mechanisms driven by perceptual saliency and endogenous selective attention mechanisms based on goal-relevant information. However, recent adult studies have identified a third mechanism known as value-driven attentional capture (VDAC). These studies have shown that consistently associating a stimulus with a high-value reward generates an attention bias so that the rewarded stimulus is more likely to be attended, even when it is no longer task-relevant (Anderson, Laurent, & Yantis, 2011). Despite growing evidence for this VDAC mechanism in adulthood, its developmental trajectory is currently unknown.

Method
Twenty-seven 9-12-month-old infants (anticipated N=50) completed a modified VDAC task (Figure 1). We recorded infants’ eye movements throughout the task. During the reward learning phase, infants searched for a target color among a six-item array of circles. Infants saw a reward immediately upon looking at the target color. Infants in the high-reward condition (N=15) saw a happy face; those in the low-reward condition (N=12) saw a neutral face. We measured eye movement response times to the rewarded target, with faster orienting over time indicating learning of the target-reward association. During the test phase, infants viewed novel shape arrays, with one dynamic target shape and five static distractor shapes. Critically, during half of the test trials, one distractor appeared in the previously rewarded color (reward-present trials). We calculated VDAC latency scores by subtracting eye movement response times during reward-absent trials from those during reward-present trials. Positive scores indicate slower responses during reward-present trials and thus stronger attention capture by the previously rewarded color. Temperament factors (surgency, negativity, and orientation/regulation) were computed based on parent report on the Infant Behavior Questionnaire (IBQ-R).

Results
Learning phase. Infants were significantly faster to orient to the rewarded target at the end of the learning phase (M= 617.41 ms, SD= 269.39 ms) compared to the beginning of learning (M= 928.42 ms, SD= 54.99 ms; t(23)= 2.68, p =.013), demonstrating that infants learned the stimulus-reward association. There were no differences in orienting latencies across the high- and low-reward conditions (p’s >.5).

Test phase. Preliminary results show a numerical trend suggesting that infants in the high-reward condition were slower to look at the target during reward-present trials (MHigh-Present= 723.84 ms, SD= 196.22 ms; MHigh-Absent= 766.15 ms, SD= 239.71 ms). In the low-reward condition infants were instead faster to look at the target during reward-present trials (MLow-Present= 821.82 ms, SD= 328.18 ms; MLow-Absent= 850.59 ms, SD= 244.77 ms). Furthermore, across both conditions infants with lower orientation/regulation temperament scores showed more positive VDAC latency scores (r= -0.51, p = 0.015; Figure 2).

Discussion
These preliminary data suggest that reward learning among 9-12-month-old infants may generate an attention bias such that the rewarded stimulus subsequently captures attention and slows responses to a perceptually salient target. Infants with lower orientation/regulation scores may be less able to overcome this bias to rapidly orient to the relevant target. Plans for future work include manipulating the value of the reward (i.e., caregiver or stranger face) and evaluating value-driven attention capture in younger infants.

Authors

• Brianna Keenan, Tulane University
  Presenting Author

• Kelsey Offen, Tulane University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Julie Markant, Tulane University
  Non-Presenting Author