Action Planning Mediates Guidance of Visual Attention from Working Memory

Figure 4

Potential extension of a visual working memory (WM) model suggested by Olivers et al. [13] to account for the interactions between working memory and action planning in the present study. A representation of the target () is kept in WM in form of a search template that facilitates finding targets in visual search displays . Accessory memory items () are representations of objects that are in principle accessible to the visual system but are currently not relevant for the task. In the current study, accessory memory items are color hues to be remembered at the end of a trial but completely irrelevant in the search task (). In “memorized color” trials they can impair search performance by enhancing an irrelevant distractor () that shares their color category . Our data suggest that distraction from target by objects of memorized colors is more pronounced when a grasping (rather than a pointing) movement is being prepared. We hypothesize that maintenance of information for subsequent action execution (“action plan”) induces an accessory memory item for action relevant features (). As the to-be-grasped object is a circle, circular distractors with memorized colors receive further enhancement, thus increasing further interference with the target .