Control over reward gain unlocks the reward cue motivational salience

Events in life can be perceived to be under our own control, or to occur independently from our will, two psychological styles known as “internal” vs “external locus-of-control” respectively. While it is established that positive events like reward-predicting stimuli attract attention, whether the control over reward gain can also influence the attentional salience of reward cues is unknown. Here, we systematically manipulated the control in reward gain to investigate this possibility in humans. Experiment 1 showed that stimuli associated with an internal control in reward attainment gained attentional salience. However, Experiment 2 showed that the internal control alone is not sufficient to confer attentional salience to reward-cues. Finally, Experiment 3 replicated the results of Experiment 1 and served also the purpose to exclude alternative accounts. Our findings show that the reward-cue attentional salience is not only affected by reward value, but also by the control over reward gain.