Measuring attention to reward as an individual trait: the value-driven attention questionnaire (VDAQ)
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Measuring attention to reward as an individual trait: the value‑driven attention questionnaire (VDAQ) Brian A. Anderson1 · Haena Kim1 · Mark K. Britton1 · Andy Jeesu Kim1 Received: 22 February 2019 / Accepted: 6 June 2019 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2019
Abstract Reward history is a powerful determinant of what we pay attention to. This influence of reward on attention varies substantially across individuals, being related to a variety of personality variables and clinical conditions. Currently, the ability to measure and quantify attention-to-reward is restricted to the use of psychophysical laboratory tasks, which limits research into the construct in a variety of ways. In the present study, we introduce a questionnaire designed to provide a brief and accessible means of assessing attention-to-reward. Scores on the questionnaire correlate with other measures known to be related to attention-to-reward and predict performance on multiple laboratory tasks measuring the construct. In demonstrating this relationship, we also provide evidence that attention-to-reward as measured in the lab, an automatic and implicit bias in information processing, is related to overt behaviors and motivations in everyday life as assessed via the questionnaire. Variation in scores on the questionnaire is additionally associated with a distinct biomarker in brain connectivity, and the questionnaire exhibits acceptable test–retest reliability. Overall, the Value-Driven Attention Questionnaire (VDAQ) provides a useful proxy-measure of attention-to-reward that is much more accessible than typical laboratory assessments.
Introduction The world is filled with a vast array of perceptual information, far more than we are capable of representing in our brains at any one moment in time (e.g., Desimone and Duncan 1995; Mack and Rock 1998; Rensink et al. 1997). In this sense, what we pay attention to determines what we have mental access to when we assess our environment and arrive at behavioral decisions. Attention can be divided into different, dissociable components, including alerting, orienting, and executive attention (Fan et al. 2002, 2005). In the present study, we focus specifically on the orienting of attention, or selective attention, and subsequent references to attention should be interpreted within this context. What we pay attention to is determined by several different factors, including our current goals (i.e., what we are looking for; Folk et al. 1992; Wolfe et al. 1989), motivations (e.g., Kiss et al. 2009; Jimura et al. 2010; Navalpakkam et al. 2009, 2010; Pessoa and Engelmann 2010), and the physical salience of different stimuli (e.g., brightness and color * Brian A. Anderson [email protected] 1
Department of Psychology, Texas A&M University, 4235 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843‑4235, USA
contrast; Theeuwes 1992, 2010; Yantis and Jonides 1984). More recently, it has been shown that reward history can serve as a powerful determinant of attention (e.g., Anderson et al.
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