Attentional selection is a neuroeconomic decision

Sensorimotor decisions require balancing extrinsic rewards against intrinsic action costs. How these signals are integrated during rapid eye-movement choices remains unclear. We show that human saccade selection follows cost-benefit computations consistent with neuroeconomic decision-making. Across two experiments, participants maximized rewards and minimized effort-costs. Reward titration revealed that more effortful saccades required higher monetary rewards to be chosen equally often. While effort-costs affected choices linearly, small reward differences shifted choices more than equally-sized larger ones. Furthermore, effort-cost (but not reward) differences regulated decision engagement: Deliberation was extended only when cost differences were large. Together, costs and rewards play dissociable roles in saccade selection, positioning eye movements as a tractable model system for economic decisionmaking. Significance statementSensorimotor decisions are thought to balance rewards against intrinsic action costs, yet how these signals are integrated during rapid eye movement choices on where to look next has remained unclear. Across two experiments, we show that saccade selection satisfies escalating criteria of economic decision-making: costs and rewards trade off on a common utility scale, contribute to choices through dissociable computations, and scale deliberation with utility differences. Effort-cost differences alone regulate decision engagement. These findings reposition attentional selection as a neuroeconomic process and a tractable model system for economic decision-making.