We investigated whether a sudden rise in prediction error widens an individual's focus of attention by increasing ocular fixations on cues that otherwise tend to be ignored. To this end, we used a discrimination learning task including cues that were either relevant or irrelevant for predicting the outcomes. Half of participants experienced contingency reversal once they had learned to predict the outcomes (reversal group, n = 30). The other half experienced the same contingencies throughout the task (control group, n = 30). As participants' prediction accuracy increased, they showed a decrease in the number of fixations directed to the irrelevant cues. Following contingency reversal, participants in the reversal group showed a drop in accuracy, indicating a rise in prediction error, and fixated on the irrelevant cues more often than participants in the control group. We discuss the results in the context of attentional theories of associative learning.

中文翻译：

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预测误差的增加会增加对不相关线索的关注

我们调查了预测误差的突然增加是否会通过增加对容易被忽略的线索的眼睛注视来扩大个人的注意力。为此，我们使用了一项辨别学习任务，包括与预测结果相关或不相关的线索。一半的参与者在学会预测结果后经历了意外逆转（逆转组，n = 30）。另一半在整个任务中经历了相同的突发事件（对照组，n = 30）。随着参与者预测准确性的提高，他们对不相关线索的注视次数减少了。在意外逆转之后，逆转组的参与者表现出准确度下降，表明预测误差增加，并且比对照组的参与者更频繁地关注不相关的线索。我们在联想学习的注意理论的背景下讨论结果。