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

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.

Controlling attention through action: Observing actions primes action-related stimulus dimensions

“…Our findings suggest that perceptual feature dimensions can be primed not only through the active preparation of actions that are related to these dimensions (Fagioli et al, 2007) but also as a consequence of merely watching such actions. This provides strong evidence for the idea that activating an action plan is sufficient to backward prime action-related perceptual dimensions.…”

“…To prevent cognitive strategies as far as possible, size and location deviants occurred randomly intermixed rather than blocked (cf. Fagioli et al, 2007).…”

“…Even though the findings of Fagioli et al (2007) provide evidence that preparing for an action somehow goes along with preparing for the processing of particular stimulus features, these observations do not necessarily require the assumption of the common coding of perceptual and action events. Instead, some separate executive control systems may be responsible for both planning and preparing a particular action and priming the corresponding perceptual dimension(s), much along the lines of Logan and Gordon (2001) ECTVA model of executive control.…”

“…However, in a recent study, Fagioli, Hommel, and Schubotz (2007) demonstrated that action planning can affect perceptual processing in a more general way. Following up the previous, rather surprising observation in fMRI studies that premotor areas are involved in perceptual tasks (Schubotz & von Cramon, 2003), Fagioli and coworkers found evidence that planning an action does not only prime action-related features belonging to the object of that action but that whole feature dimensions get primed.…”

Attention to future actions: the influence of instructed S-R versus S-S mappings on attentional control

“…This implies that an action can prime a stimulus, and vice versa. More importantly, these theories also suggest that action planning will influence attentional processing of action-related stimuli (e.g., Fagioli, Ferlazzo, & Hommel, 2007;Fagioli, Hommel, & Schubotz, 2007). Although these theories assume a strong relationship between attention and action, the influence of planning a new action (i.e., without prior execution) on attentional processing remains unexplored.…”