As we interact with the world, we learn how to allocate our attention effectively to achieve our goals. In this study, participants’ eye movements were tracked as they engaged in a same-different task with novel stimuli. Participants then completed a goal-directed task using physical copies of the items. In the task, the goal-relevance of the attributes varied. This was followed by a second block of the same-different task. We analyzed how attention to the goal-relevant, goal-incidental, and goal-irrelevant attributes of the items shifted from the initial block of the same-different task to the second. The gaze patterns clearly distinguished between the goal-relevant and goal-irrelevant attributes. However, there was no distinction between the goal-relevant and goal-incidental attributes. We discuss the implications for understanding how goal-directed interactions shape attentional allocation and how this relates to what people learn about the items.