Attention and the Role of the Reward Recognition Network

This chapter provides a review of the relationship between reward recognition, attention, and by extension, motivation. Attention has a pivotal role in the reward recognition process and is controlled by top-down value-driven assessments of value. These assessments are constantly being revised. Value control of attention is inherent in top-down attentional processing and can provide import information to the practicing clinician when the choices that their clients make are suboptimal. We can conjecture what individuals with difficulty in managing value-based decisions might look like in terms of attentional deficiency. Attentional capture by valuable but task-irrelevant stimuli could direct behavior to unconventional and perhaps clinically undesirable behaviors. Attentional capture by valuable but task-irrelevant stimuli could also confer adaptive advantages in many circumstances, leading the perceiver to orient to inconspicuous and/or unexpected reward-related stimuli. At the same time, however, attentional capture by reward-related stimuli can be maladaptive when it conflicts with contextually appropriate goals. The treatment for such disorders would be quite different than targeting impulse control or executive regulation that currently characterize treatment for many attentional problems.