Value‑modulated attentional capture depends on awareness Garre Frutos, Francisco Lupiáñez Castillo, Juan Vadillo, Miguel A. Reward Awareness Learning This study is part of the FGF PhD thesis under the supervision of JL and MV. This study was supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades: Grants PID2023-148421NB-I00 and PID2023-150830NB-I00, funded by MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and FEDER, UE; CEX2023- 001312-M funded by MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and UCEPP2023- 11 funded by the University of Granada; and an FPU predoctoral fellowship (ref. FPU20/00826) to FGF. Funding for open access charge: Universidad de Granada/CBUA. Funding for open access publishing: Universidad de Granada/CBUA. Value-modulated attentional capture (VMAC) refers to a process by which a priori neutral stimuli gain attentional priority when associated with reward, independently of goal or stimulus-driven attentional control. Although VMAC is considered an automatic and implicit process, the role of awareness of the stimulus-reward contingency on its learning process remains unclear at best. In a well-powered replication of a previous study, we found that VMAC is absent when participants are not explicitly informed about the stimulus-reward contingency in the pre-task instructions. In a second experiment, we show that when instructions are manipulated between groups, only the instructed group shows VMAC. Interestingly, although the no-instruction group did not show VMAC at the group level, participants who became aware of the stimulus-reward contingencies did nevertheless show robust VMAC at the end of the task. Meta-analytic evidence further supports our conclusion by showing that studies that include instructions about the stimulus-reward contingencies yield significantly larger VMAC effects. Taken collectively, these findings suggest that the learning process behind VMAC may not be entirely implicit. 2025-11-25T09:26:27Z 2025-11-25T09:26:27Z 2025-07-16 journal article Garre-Frutos, F., Lupiáñez Castillo, J., & Vadillo, M. A. (2025). Value-modulated attentional capture depends on awareness. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-025-02734-1 1531-5320 1069-9384 https://hdl.handle.net/10481/108289 10.3758/s13423-025-02734-1 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ open access Atribución 4.0 Internacional Springer Nature