The last ten years of attention research have witnessed a revolution, replacing a theoretical
dichotomy (top-down vs. bottom-up control) with a trichotomy (biased by current goals …

In natural behaviour, animals actively interrogate their environments using endogenously
generated 'question-and-answer'strategies. However, in laboratory settings participants …

The basal ganglia (BG) and the cerebellum historically have been relegated to a functional
role in producing or modulating motor output. Recent research, however, has emphasized …

Curiosity—our desire to know—is a fundamental drive in human behaviour, but its
mechanisms are poorly understood. A classical question concerns the curiosity motives …

Highlights•Associative reward learning biases attention in favor of reward-predictive
stimuli.•Reward-evoked dopamine release gives rise to plasticity in the visual system.•Such …

Individuals typically want what they expect to like, often based on memories of previous
positive experiences. However, in some situations desire can decouple completely from …

Highlights•Attention is powerfully affected by our prior experiences.•Reward-related stimuli
continue to capture attention when no longer task-relevant.•Stimuli that previously signaled …

Highlights•In tasks of information demand, participants explicitly request information.•The
tasks prompt a view of priority as a cognitive state that facilitates information …

Reward history, physical salience, and task relevance all influence the degree to which a
stimulus competes for attention, reflecting value-driven, stimulus-driven, and goal-contingent …

Most of the previous research in the area of cognitive psychology or cognitive neuroscience
focused on studying negative emotions and argued that the negative emotional stimuli …