Attentional economics links value-modulated attentional capture and decision-making

Effective decision-making involves multiple steps to reduce a nearly limitless set of available choices to a final selection. The attention system plays a critical early role in this process by prioritizing and deprioritizing certain alternatives for further processing. Attention is rapidly and automatically directed to stimuli that have been repeatedly paired with highly rewarding outcomes. This attentional bias persists even when attending to the reward-related stimulus does not align with current goals and when the rewarding outcome is no longer desired. In this Review, we outline an ‘attentional economic’ hypothesis that links value-modulated attention to decision-making. Attentional prioritization of high-value choice alternatives increases the weighting of those alternatives during decision-making and thereby increases the likelihood that they will be chosen. We explore how this interaction between value, attention and decision-making might contribute to the maladaptive choices seen in addiction. By discussing the cognitive mechanisms at the intersection of visual cognition and decision-making, we offer an integrated framework for understanding value-modulated attention as a core aspect of motivated behaviour.