The Neurodevelopment of Value-driven Attention.

Reward significantly influences the selective processing of sensory information, with human adults demonstrating automatic attentional capture by rewarding stimuli, even when irrelevant. While the neural mechanisms for value-driven attention in adults are understood, the developmental aspect in humans remains unclear. In this study, we used electroencephalograms to examine brain activity in early teens (13-15 years old), late teens (16-17 years old), and adults (19-31 years old) during a value-driven attention task. Adults were faster and more accurate in target selection than teens. Interestingly, in late teens, selection history began to greatly affect behavioral performance and the N2pc component amplitudes, a neural index of target processing. Unlike selection history, reward alone did not change behavioral or neural responses but combined with selection history, it affected both. High-value distractors worsened performance and reduced N2pc amplitude, especially in adults. Late adolescents and adults experienced similar interference from high-value distractors, but low-value distractors had a greater impact on late adolescents than on other groups, both behaviorally and neurally. These findings suggest that during late adolescence, attention to both low- and high-value stimuli strengthens, leading to less distractibility to low-value stimuli later. The distinct influences of selection and reward history imply significant developmental changes in the attention and reward systems, culminating in mature value-driven attentional functions in early adulthood.