In our daily lives, we are exposed to countless stimuli, with some having more potential than others to capture our attention. Among the many factors influencing this capacity, one that is powerfully evident is the value or interest that a stimulus may evoke. This phenomenon has been studied in the laboratory, referred to as "Value-Modulated Attentional Capture" (VMAC).
VMAC involves an increase in the distractibility of a initially neutral stimulus due to its contingent association with reward. This type of attentional bias has been shown to be difficult to control, seemingly automatic, and a result of associative learning processes. Hence, numerous studies have sought to investigate how the predisposition to show such attentional biases might be related to different psychopathological conditions (substance abuse, depression, impulse control problems, etc.).
However, to study how VMAC may play a role in these conditions, it is essential to ensure that measures of this effect meet appropriate psychometric properties. To address this, the research team from CIMCYC, consisting of Francisco Garre-Frutos, Felisa González, and Juan Lupiáñez, in collaboration with Miguel Vadillo (Autonomous University of Madrid), assessed the psychometric reliability of the VMAC effect in a large online study.
In this study, they replicated and extended previous results on how a stimulus predicting the possibility of obtaining a reward can increase its distractibility in a visual attention task. Furthermore, to assess the reliability of this attentional effect, a multiverse analysis was conducted, examining how different ways of processing data, equally valid a priori, could affect the psychometric reliability of VMAC. The results showed high heterogeneity in the reliability of the effect and that certain decisions in data processing, such as the number of observations included in the analysis or different approaches to dealing with extreme observations, significantly impact the reliability of the VMAC effect.
This study highlights the importance of considering psychometric properties when studying individual differences using VMAC measures. The research team recommends that researchers interested in individual differences in VMAC should plan their studies with a focus on the reliability of the effect.
Complete Reference: Garre-Frutos F, Vadillo MA, González F, Lupiáñez J. (2024) On the reliability of value-modulated attentional capture: An online replication and multiverse analysis. Behav Res Methods. doi: 10.3758/s13428-023-02329-5
Contact Researchers:
Francisco Garre: fgfrutos@ugr.es
Felisa González: fgreyes@ugr.es
Juan Lupiáñez: jlupiane@ugr.es