Fig. 1.

Schematic representation of the experimental paradigm and behavioral results. Each trial of the task (a), began with a neutral period, during which subjects viewed an artificial agent of no intrinsic value (represented by a gray circle) wandering the maze. Next, they were informed that they would begin chasing an artificial prey (represented by a green circle) and were told whether the payoff for catching the prey would be low (50 pence) or high (£5). Subjects then began to pursue the prey; their position in the maze was indicated by a blue triangle. At the end of this phase, a blank rest screen appeared for an average of 8 s before the next neutral phase began. The task was interleaved with a separate task in which subjects were pursued by an artificial predator (Mobbs et al., 2007). The graphs show the (c) percentage of successful captures and (d) percentage of near-misses for low- and high-payoff preys.