Action planning renders objects in working memory more attentionally salient

A rapidly growing body of work suggests that visual working memory (VWM) is fundamentally action-oriented. Consistent with this, we recently showed that attention is more strongly biased by VWM representations of objects when we plan to act on those objects in the future. Using electroencephalography (EEG) and eye tracking, here we investigated how action planning in VWM biases selective attention at the neural level. Participants (n=36) memorized a shape for a subsequent VWM test. At test, a probe was presented along with a secondary object. In the action condition, participants had to grip the actual probe if it matched the memorized shape, while in the control condition, they had to grip the secondary object. Crucially, during the VWM delay, participants engaged in a visual selection task, in which they had to locate a target as fast as possible. The memorized shape could either encircle the target (congruent trials) or a distractor (incongruent trials). Replicating previous findings, we found that eye gaze was biased towards the VWM-matching shape, and importantly, more so when the shape was directly associated with an action plan. Moreover, the ERP results revealed that during the selection task, future action-relevant VWM-matching shapes elicited (1) a stronger Ppc, signaling greater attentional saliency, (2) an earlier PD component, suggesting faster suppression, (3) and a larger inverse (i.e., positive) SPCN in incongruent trials, consistent with stronger suppression of action-associated distractors, and (4) an enhanced response-locked positivity over left motor regions, possibly indicating enhanced inhibition of the response associated with the memorized item during the interim task. Overall, these results suggest that action planning renders objects in VWM more attentionally salient, supporting the notion of selection-for-action in working memory.