Target selection biases from recent experience transfer across effectors

Jeff Moher, Joo-Hyun Song

Target selection is often biased by an observer's recent experiences. However, not much is known about whether these selection biases influence behavior across different effectors. For example, does looking at a red object make it easier to subsequently reach towards another red object? In the current study, we asked observers to find the uniquely colored target object on each trial. Randomly intermixed pre-trial cues indicated the mode of action: either an eye movement or a visually guided reach movement to the target. In Experiment 1, we found that priming of popout, reflected in faster responses following repetition of the target color on consecutive trials, occurred regardless of whether the effector was repeated from the previous trial or not. In Experiment 2, we examined whether an inhibitory selection bias away from a feature could transfer across effectors. While priming of popout reflects both enhancement of the repeated target features and suppression of the repeated distractor features, the distractor previewing effect isolates a purely inhibitory component of target selection in which a previewed color is presented in a homogenous display and subsequently inhibited. Much like priming of popout, intertrial suppression biases in the distractor previewing effect transferred across effectors. Together, these results suggest that biases for target selection driven by recent trial history transfer across effectors. This indicates that representations in memory that bias attention towards or away from specific features are largely independent from their associated actions.