Do physical effort and electrical stimulations similarly affect attentional capture?

Visual attention prioritizes stimuli previously associated with punishment, even if they are non-salient and task-irrelevant. A recent study demonstrated that punishment-related attentional capture could be suppressed when participants were strongly encouraged to resist attentional capture. The present study aimed to determine whether a similar suppression effect would be observed when physical effort is used as punishment instead of electrical stimulations. Participants first performed a training phase involving fixating a shape-defined target among distractors, one of which was uniquely colored. The color of the distractor predicted the possibility of exerting physical effort, which was required following thirty-three percent of trials in which the effort-associated distractor appeared. Participants could avert physical effort via fast and accurate performance (which would be facilitated by ignoring the effort-associated distractor). Results revealed no suppression of punishment-related attentional capture in the training phase as well as in a subsequent task (similar to training) in which no effort was exerted. These findings suggest that mechanisms underlying physical effort do not affect attention similarly as electrical stimulations.