Beyond Left and Right: Binding and Retrieval of Spatial and Temporal Features of Planned Actions

Abstract

There is evidence that planning an action relies on binding codes of the relevant features of that action into an action plan. Such binding is indicated by the observation that planning a novel action is impaired if it shares some but not all features with another action that is held in memory for later execution. Most previous studies have focused on the binding of the spatial features 'left' and 'right', which are particularly salient but not the only features of intentional body movements. In a series of four online experiments, we tested whether evidence for the binding of other (non)spatial features could also be found. Taken together, we indeed obtained evidence for the binding of temporal ('short' and 'long') and vertical ('top' and 'bottom') features, in addition to the commonly studied horizontal features ('left' and 'right'). Yet, clear binding effects were mainly restricted to action features that remained uncertain up to the point the respective action had to be planned. These observations have important theoretical and methodical implications for the future studies of feature binding in action planning.

Keywords

• action
• action control
• feature binding
• action planning
• preparation