Impact of action planning on spatial perception: Attention matters

Previous research suggested that perception of spatial location is biased towards spatial goals of planned hand movements. In the present study I show that an analogous perceptual distortion can be observed if attention is paid to a spatial location in the absence of planning a hand movement. Participants judged the position of a target during preparation of a mouse movement, the end point of which could deviate from the target by a varying degree in Exp. 1. Judgments of target position were systematically affected by movement characteristics consistent with perceptual assimilation between the target and the planned movement goal. This effect was neither due to an impact of motor execution on judgments (Exp. 2) nor due to characteristics of the movement cues or of certain target positions (Exp. 3, Exp. 5A). When the task included deployment of attention to spatial positions (former movement goals) in preparation for a secondary perceptual task, an effect emerged that was comparable with the bias associated with movement planning (Exp. 4, Exp. 5B). These results indicate that visual distortions accompanying manipulations of variables related to action could be mediated by attentional mechanisms.