Attention for perception and action: task interference for action planning, but not for online control

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Visual Perception
• Motor Control

Background:

• Human vision supports both object identification (ventral system) and action control (dorsal system).
• The concurrent operation of these visual systems is not well understood.
• Research has yet to explore the extent of resource sharing between perception and action planning.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether the planning of actions and conscious object identification can occur concurrently.
• To determine if visual perception interferes with the planning and execution of motor actions.
• To examine the resource demands of action planning versus online action control.

Main Methods:

• Participants identified objects while planning pointing actions to other objects.
• Interference effects were measured between object identification and action planning.
• The study examined visually guided control during dynamic scene changes.

Main Results:

• Object identification interfered with the planning of pointing actions.
• No interference was observed between object identification and the online control of initiated actions.
• This lack of interference persisted even when actions required dynamic adjustments.

Conclusions:

• Action planning shares resources with conscious perception.
• Online control of initiated actions does not share resources with conscious perception.
• Distinct resource pools support action planning and online action control.