کنفرانس مهندسی برق ایران

صفحه اصلی / سی و چهارمین کنفرانس بین المللی مهندسی برق

Motivational Salience Impacts Orientation Discrimination in a Saccadic Target Selection Task

نویسندگان :

Najmeh Golimahmoudi¹ Mitra Zakeri² Farveh Daneshvarfard³ Ali Asadollahi⁴

1- Faculty of Engineering Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran 2- Faculty of Engineering Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran 3- Faculty of Engineering Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran 4- professor of Rayan Research Center for Neuroscience & Behavior, Department of Biology, Faculty of Sciences, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad

کلمات کلیدی :

Attentional capture،Motivational salience،Valence،Reward and punishment،Saccadic eye movements،Eye tracking،Visual attention،Target selection

چکیده :

Stimuli linked to reward or punishment can capture attention, yet it remains debated whether attentional bias is driven by cue valence (positive vs. negative) or motivational salience (behavioral significance regardless of valence). We investigated this question with an eye-tracking task in which colored cues were associated with reward, punishment, or neutral outcomes while participants made saccades to a tilted Gabor target. Target difficulty systematically modulated behavior: as orientation approached vertical, response times increased, and accuracy decreased. Critically, motivationally salient cues biased early saccadic selection, indicating rapid attentional capture. Specifically, short-latency saccades were more likely to land on the cued side when the cue was motivationally salient (reward- or punishment-associated), whereas this capture effect was attenuated for long-latency saccades. The findings support a primary role for motivational salience in early selection, with additional valence-related influences on later decision processes.