Abstract
A reward that is personally relevant tends to induce stronger pursuit motivation than a reward that is linked to other people. However, the role of attention in eliciting this “self-referential reward effect” remains unclear. In our two studies, we evaluated the significance of attention in self-referential reward processing utilizing an ownership paradigm, which required participants to complete a visual search task to win either monetary rewards (in Study 1) or social rewards (in Study 2) for themselves or for an acquaintance. Access to attentional resources was manipulated by sometimes including a distracting stimulus among the presented stimuli. The results of Study 1 revealed that a significant self-referential reward effect emerged under undistracted attentional conditions and was associated with improved task performance when self-owned monetary rewards were available. However, distracted attention impaired this self-referential reward effect. Moreover, distracted attention was also observed in the self-referential social reward processing in Study 2. These results suggested that distracted attention can impair the pursuit advantage for self-relevant rewards; self-referential processing is strongly dependent on attentional resources.
Highlights
The influence of the self on attentional processes has been recognized by psychologists
These results suggest that monetary reward was operationalized successfully
The current study indicated that the processes underlying the monetary and social rewards of elaborative encoding and pursuit in response to self-cues are attentionally demanding
Summary
The influence of the self on attentional processes has been recognized by psychologists. The tendency for self-cues to capture attention is clearly advantageous, as information that is coupled with the self is likely to be of greater personal importance than material linked with other people. Reflecting this potential importance, a reward associated with oneself elicits a robust motivating advantage compared to a reward linked to another person (Krigolson et al, 2013; Sui and Humphreys, 2015; Zhan et al, 2016). The question of interest in the present study is whether the increased motivation to earn self-relevant rewards depends on the attentional resources devoted to self-cues
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