The influence of motor preparation on the processing of action-relevant visual features

Abstract

Action preparation can facilitate performance in tasks of visual perception, for instance by speeding up responses to action-relevant stimulus features. However, it is unknown whether this facilitation reflects an influence on early perceptual processing, or instead post-perceptual processes. In three experiments, a combination of psychophysics and electroencephalography was used to investigate whether visual features are influenced by action preparation at the perceptual level. Participants were cued to prepare oriented reach-to-grasp actions before discriminating target stimuli oriented in the same direction as the prepared grasping action (congruent) or not (incongruent). As expected, stimuli were discriminated faster if their orientation was congruent, compared to incongruent, with the prepared action. However, action-congruency had no influence on perceptual sensitivity, regardless of cue-target interval and discrimination difficulty. The reaction time effect was not accompanied by modulations of early visual-evoked potentials. Instead, beta-band (13–30 Hz) synchronization over sensorimotor brain regions was influenced by action preparation, indicative of improved response preparation. Together, the results suggest that action preparation may not modulate early visual processing of orientation, but likely influences higher order response or decision related processing. While early effects of action on spatial perception are well documented, separate mechanisms appear to govern non-spatial feature selection.

An adaptive paradigm for detecting the individual duration of the preparatory period in the choice reaction time task

“…The independence assumption regarding the selection and the execution of a response allows to replace the response selection process with the period (often called "foreperiod", FP) between the presentation of a preliminary warning signal or a response direction cue and an imperative go signal, prompting the selected response execution [5]. A long FP leads to the emergence of a complex effect including a decrease in the response latency and an increase in its accuracy [6][7][8][9] as well as a decrease in the sensory thresholds of the response-relevant features of the imperative signal [7,10]. Korolczuk et al [11] investigated FP-bound mechanisms of response preparation and found an increase in general response inhibition and selected response facilitation.…”