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Intentional control of attention: action planning primes action-related stimulus dimensions

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Abstract

Neurophysiological observations suggest that attending to a particular perceptual dimension, such as location or shape, engages dimension-related action, such as reaching and prehension networks. Here we reversed the perspective and hypothesized that activating action systems may prime the processing of stimuli defined on perceptual dimensions related to these actions. Subjects prepared for a reaching or grasping action and, before carrying it out, were presented with location- or size-defined stimulus events. As predicted, performance on the stimulus event varied with action preparation: planning a reaching action facilitated detecting deviants in location sequences whereas planning a grasping action facilitated detecting deviants in size sequences. These findings support the theory of event coding, which claims that perceptual codes and action plans share a common representational medium, which presumably involves the human premotor cortex.

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Notes

  1. One might wonder how our prediction that action planning facilitates perceptual processing fits with previous observations of action-induced blindness, that is, the finding that preparing a left- or right-hand action impairs the processing of a spatially compatible stimulus, such as a left- or right-pointing arrow (Müsseler & Hommel, 1997). The explanation is central for our present argument: We assume that planning an action binds the codes that represent this action’s features, which occupies these particular codes and makes them less available for other purposes like coding a perceptual event (the blindness effect; see Hommel & Müsseler, 2005). That is, occupying a code primes it and prevents it not from being further activated by other events, but it does prevent it (to some degree) from being bound with other features and to other representations. The new assumption we make here is that planning an action may not only activate the relevant feature codes but may also prime whole feature dimensions, such as size or shape in the case of grasping and location in the case of pointing. If true this would mean that any feature on the primed dimension would benefit from preparing a particular action. But please note that whether this benefit turns into a measurable behavioral advantage always depends on whether the particular feature is already bound to another event or not (Hommel, 2004)

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a grant of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft to BH (Priority Program on Executive Functions, HO 1430/8-2), and prepared during a sabbatical of SF at Leiden University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Cognitive Ergonomics Laboratory, University of Rome “La Sapienza”, Rome, Italy

    Sabrina Fagioli

  2. Department of Psychology, Cognitive Psychology Unit, Leiden University, P.O. Box 9555, 2300 RB, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Sabrina Fagioli & Bernhard Hommel

  3. Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany

    Ricarda Ines Schubotz

Authors
  1. Sabrina Fagioli
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  2. Bernhard Hommel
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  3. Ricarda Ines Schubotz
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Correspondence to Bernhard Hommel.

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Fagioli, S., Hommel, B. & Schubotz, R.I. Intentional control of attention: action planning primes action-related stimulus dimensions. Psychological Research 71, 22–29 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-005-0033-3

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