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Prioritisation of Attention Allocation in a Static Multiple Target Search Task: Experiment 2
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Description: The reward effect refers to a cognitive bias towards detecting more quickly and efficiently targets which upon accurate detection, they received a higher reward versus targets which upon accurate detection receive a lower reward. This experiment aims to provide support for this effect using real-life stimuli in a Multiple Target Search (MTS) task. Participants will be asked to complete one testing session online, which lasts approximately 20 minutes. The experiment consists of 20 practise trials and 300 experimental trials. Participants will have to complete a Multiple Target Search (MTS) task, where they will be presented with 8 different items of real-life stimuli and they will have to detect targets amongst distractors as quickly as possible (i.e. reaction time task). Out of the 300 trials, 150 will be target-present and 150 will be target-absent trials. For the duration of the whole experiment, participants will have to mentally hold representations of three different possible targets with three different levels of reward: high, middle and low reward targets. In target-present trials, only 1 target (out of the three possible target templates) will be present amongst 7 distractors and participants will have to give a target present response. When participants detect both accurately and quickly enough a high reward target they will receive a reward of 7 points, a middle reward target 2 points and a low reward target 1 point. In target-absent trials, only distractors will be present with no target, and participants will have to give a target-absent response. The primary investigation of interest is the RT difference in participants’ target-present responses across the three different levels of reward. It is expected that, participants will be better and quicker at detecting high versus low reward targets.