How do you explain this form of perceptual and attentional bias in terms of psychological processes?

It has been found that an increasing strength of the reward system is closely related to an increasing selective perception of conditioned and unconditioned rewards in the environment... even to the extent that the perception of other types of cues that are present (cues of uncertainty or aversiveness) is less effective.





How do you explain this form of perceptual and attentional bias in terms of neuroanatomy and psychological processes?


how might this bias develop over an individual's lifetime?|||Recall discriminative stimuli SD's and S-deltas (indiscriminate). It is reasonable to assert that the mind learns to distinguish btwn the 2 and makes what one believes to be a more certain (and rewarding) choice and will place other stimuli in the background.|||"Attention" is directed by the ACG (Anterior Cigulate Gyrus) and only about 5% of all incoming stimuli is "granted" attention by the conscious brain.





The reward system is related to emotions, so of course, attention will be granted to those events or conditions that provide cues to meet emotional and survival rewards.





Experience has encoded, or taught, the brain to pay attention to cues that provide rewards...so faster and more efficient neural pathways are created and strengthened over time. A lifetime of reward means "I'm looking closely for cues that provides the rewards I seek".





What's difficult to understand is why people continue to involve themselves with cues that are unhealthy or self-destructive.