Yamaguchi and Kobayashi, 1998). Other studies have shown that reward associations, especially for task-irrelevant stimulus aspects, can distract participants from the task-relevant aspects and have a detrimental effect on performance (e.g., Hickey et al., 2010; Krebs et al., 2010, 2011, 2013), which also adds evidence in favor of potential automatic influences of reward on task processes. We suggest that reward influences cue-related processes relatively directly, while strategically implemented attentional orienting plays a role only later in processing in an attempt to optimize performance according to the situational circumstances.
