Repetition effects in action planning reflect effector- but not hemisphere-specific coding

Action choices are influenced by future and recent past action states. For example, when performing two actions in succession, response times (RTs) to initiate the second action are reduced when the same hand is used. These findings suggest the existence of effector-specific processing for action planning. However, given that each hand is primarily controlled by the contralateral hemisphere, the RT benefit might actually reflect effector-independent, hemisphere-specific rather than effector-specific repetition effects. Here, participants performed two consecutive movements, each with a hand or a foot, in one of two directions. Direction was specified in an egocentric reference frame (inward, outward) or in an allocentric reference frame (left, right). Successive actions were initiated faster when the same limb (e.g., left hand-left hand), but not the other limb of the same body side (e.g., left foot-left hand), executed the second action. The same-limb advantage was evident even when the two movements involved different directions, whether specified egocentrically or allocentrically. Corroborating evidence from computational modeling lends support to the claim that repetition effects in action planning reflect persistent changes in baseline activity within neural populations that encode effector-specific action plans.NEW & NOTEWORTHY Repeated hand use facilitates the initiation of successive actions (repetition effect). This finding has been interpreted as evidence for effector-specific action plans. However, given that each hand is primarily controlled by the contralateral hemisphere, any differences might reflect effector-independent, hemisphere-specific rather than effector-specific processing. We dissociated these alternatives by asking participants to perform successive actions with hands and feet and provide novel evidence that repetition effects in limb use truly reflect effector-specific coding.