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While numerous studies have explored the mechanisms of reward-based decisions (the choice of action based on expected gain), few have asked how reward influences attention (the selection of information relevant for a decision). Here we show that a powerful determinant of attentional priority is the association between a stimulus and an appetitive reward. A peripheral cue heralded the delivery of reward or no reward (these cues are termed herein RC+ and RC−, respectively); to experience the predicted outcome, monkeys made a saccade to a target that appeared unpredictably at the same or opposite location relative to the cue. Although the RC had no operant associations (did not specify the required saccade), they automatically biased attention, such that an RC+ attracted attention and an RC− repelled attention from its location. Neurons in the lateral intraparietal area (LIP) encoded these attentional biases …