Fig 1. Sequence of events in a given trial.

During the association phase, participants were asked to discriminate as fast and as accurately as possible a figure presented either upward or downward. One of the orientation of the figure (counterbalanced across participants) was followed by a high reward (a coin of 5 CHF), or a low reward (a coin of 5 cts) presented subliminally. During the training phase, the target was preceded by a cue, either endogenous or exogenous. In order to investigate the attentional capture of subliminal previously high or low rewarded stimuli, one of the distractors corresponded to the figure associated previously with a high reward on 25% of trials, or a low reward on another 25% of trials. Correct responses were followed by a reward of 1 CHF.