Action planning biases interactions between visual working memory representations

Recent studies suggest that planning an action on an object in visual working memory (VWM) can modulate its sensory representations. In this study, we investigated how planning an action on objects in VWM influences the way in which VWM representations interact – specifically whether different associated action plans also lead to more differentiated mnemonic representations of sensory input. We hypothesized that associating two visual orientations with different action plans in VWM would make them appear more dissimilar in memory than two orientations linked to the same action plan. Participants (n=32) memorized the orientation of two bars, sequentially presented on a touch screen. Following a delay, they manually reproduced each of the orientations. Each bar was followed by an action cue informing participants which action had to be performed at test to reproduce the memorized orientations. In the different action condition, the bars were associated with different action plans, i.e., a grip and a slide action. In the same action condition, they were linked to the same action plan, namely both grip or both slide actions. Our results show that similarly oriented bars repelled each other in both conditions (the well-known repulsion effect), but more so when associated with different action plans. Preliminary results from a control experiment indicate that the observed repulsion effect cannot be explained by differential motor biases, but is driven by action planning-induced changes in the mnemonic representations themselves (i.e., is perceptual in nature). Thus, not only visual features, but also action attributes modulate the way VWM representations interact: planned actions on objects in VWM can influence the extent to which their VWM representations look more or less similar to our mind’s eyes.