# The Control of Attention and Learning from Physical Effort

> **NIH NIH R01** · TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY · 2022 · $67,539

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
 Attention selects which aspects of sensory input receive cognitive processing and thereby influence
behavior. Drug addiction alters the attentional system, resulting in prominent attentional biases towards drug
cues. Such drug-related attentional biases are related to the broader phenomenology of addiction, including
craving and relapse. There has been long-standing interest in implementing attentional bias measures in
clinical settings, either as a predictive measure to inform treatment decisions or as a target of treatment.
However, a major barrier to the realization of this goal is that current means of assessing these biases are not
sufficiently precise to support clinical utility, which has stifled progress in this area. Mirroring this complexity,
and underscoring the need for clarity, debate has arisen concerning the role of learning history in the guidance
of attention more broadly. Persistent attentional biases have been linked to reward history, learning from
aversive outcomes, and outcome-independent selection history (e.g., familiarity). Emerging accounts of such
experience-dependent attentional biases disagree about the nature of the underlying mechanism(s) involved.
Without a solid understanding of the variety of influences of learning history on attention at a fundamental level,
it will be difficult to understand how these influences contribute to addiction-related attentional biases. The
research supported by the parent grant seeks to directly address this need by identifying, isolating, and
measuring multiple hypothesized components of the attentional biases that characterize addiction, providing
the precision necessary for more accurate predictions of patient outcomes and more targeted efforts to
improve these outcomes through attentional bias modification. The proposed research supplement to support
diversity in health-related research will expand upon the research proposed as a part of the parent grant,
probing the mechanisms by which the exertion of physical effort modulates the control of attention and how
different mechanisms of attentional learning are modulated by expectancies concerning effort expenditure,
which together with the parent grant will provide a comprehensive picture of the multifaceted nature of
experience-dependent attention. The overarching goal of the proposed research is to characterize multiple
distinct components of experience-dependent attentional bias that contribute to attentional biases evident in
drug-dependent individuals. These fundamental components of attentional bias will provide a much more
precise window into the attentional processes that are relevant to the understanding of addiction than existing
measures can offer. It is anticipated that the knowledge gained from the proposed research will provide a
foundation for overcoming fundamental limitations in the clinical utility of attentional bias measures, allowing for
fruitful exploration of this aspect of addiction...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10550081
- **Project number:** 3R01DA046410-04S1
- **Recipient organization:** TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Brian August Anderson
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $67,539
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2019-02-01 → 2023-12-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10550081

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10550081, The Control of Attention and Learning from Physical Effort (3R01DA046410-04S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-06-12 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10550081. Licensed CC0.

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