Naturalistic actions modulate Working Memory prioritization in immersive virtual reality

Human cognition is inherently action-oriented, enabling flexible interaction with dynamic environments. Working Memory (WM) links perception and action by maintaining task-relevant representations. Although evidence indicates that action planning can influence what information is maintained in WM, traditional laboratory paradigms often rely on simplified response demands that only partially capture real-world perception–action coupling. Here, we investigated whether the nature of actions modulate the prioritization of sensory representations in WM. Using a virtual reality task, participants responded either via a simple button press or by performing a more naturalistic object movement, while a spatial cue indicated the item most likely to be probed (pre-cued or retro-cued). Accuracy was analyzed using generalized linear mixed-effects models. Naturalistic actions yielded higher accuracy than button presses. Critically, this advantage was confined to validly cued items. Together, these findings suggest that the action associated with a representation plays a constitutive role in WM prioritization, such that prioritization cannot be fully characterized independently of its action context. More broadly, the study highlights immersive virtual reality as a valuable tool for investigating working memory under ecologically grounded yet experimentally controlled conditions, enabling the characterization of functional properties that would be difficult to capture with traditional laboratory paradigms.