This analysis showed a significant exogenous validity effect for high-reward trials [ F 1, 17) = 18.484, p <.001, ηp =.521, power =.982] and a trend for low-reward trials [ F 1, 17) = 3.341, p =.085, ηp =.164, power =.407], whereas no reliable difference was observed for the no-reward trials (F < 1; see Fig. 2).
A repeated measures ANOVA was run with exogenous cue validity (valid, invalid) and endogenous cue validity (valid, invalid) as within-subjects variables.
In order to investigate this, we ran a repeated measures ANOVA with context (reward vs. control), exogenous cue validity (valid, invalid), and endogenous cue validity (valid, invalid) as variables, on no-reward trials only.
Although it appeared that participants were overall slightly faster in the reward-cueing task than in the control task (437 vs. 447 ms, respectively), an additional repeated measures ANOVA with task type (reward, control), reward level, 1 exogenous cue validity, and endogenous cue validity as variables showed no main effect of task type [ F 1, 17) = 2.179, p =.158, ηp =.114, power =.286].
The behavioural impact of such TMS depended not only on the target hemifield but also on exogenous cue validity, facilitating spatial reorienting to invalidly cued right visual targets.
Although no main effect of reward was observed (F < 1), we did find a significant interaction between reward level and exogenous cue validity [ F 2, 34) = 7.305, p =.008, ηp =.301, power =.814, Greenhouse Geisser corrected].
Crucially, an interaction between exogenous cue validity and reward level was observed, indicating that reward-based associative-learning processes rapidly influence attentional capture, even when endogenous attention has been actively deployed.
In addition, a highly significant interaction between reward level and exogenous cue validity was observed, showing that stimuli associated with higher reward values captured more attention, resulting in sped-up RTs when reward-associated cues signaled the correct target location.
In addition, a linear trend was observed between the magnitude of the exogenous cue validity effect and reward level, showing that higher reward levels were associated with stronger attentional capture effects [ F 1, 17) = 11.515, p =.003, ηp =.404, power =.892].
Additionally, a main effect of exogenous cue validity was observed, showing that participants were faster to respond to the target when the target was presented in the colored box (valid = 432 ms, invalid = 443 ms) [ F 1, 17) = 13.985, p =.002, ηp =.451, power =.941].
No significant interaction between endogenous and exogenous cue validities was observed for any of the reward levels (all Fs < 1).
