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Concurrent selection of internal goals and external sensations during visual search
1Institute for Brain and Behavior Amsterdam, Department of Experimental and Applied Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Science Advances
|November 7, 2025
Summary
Internal and external selection processes for behavior can happen at the same time, not just one after another. This concurrent brain activity supports efficient visual search.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Human Psychology
Background:
- Flexible goal-directed behavior requires coordinating internal goals and external sensory information.
- Previous research studied these selection processes in isolation, limiting understanding of their temporal coordination.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the temporal relationship between internal goal selection and external sensory selection during behavior.
- To determine if these selection processes occur serially or concurrently.
Main Methods:
- Developed a visual search task to simultaneously monitor internal working memory goals and external environmental targets.
- Utilized sensitive gaze tracking and neural markers in human participants.
Main Results:
- Provided evidence that internal and external selection processes can occur concurrently, not strictly serially.
- Demonstrated that concurrent selection is supported by largely nonoverlapping neural activity patterns.
- Showed effective performance even when working memory and perception engaged opposite spatial locations.
Conclusions:
- Challenges the notion of strictly serial or isolated internal versus external brain states.
- Highlights the concurrent nature of internal and external selection for efficient search behavior.
- Offers insights into the neural mechanisms supporting coordinated goal-directed behavior.
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