The Planning and Control Model (PCM) of Motorvisual Priming: Reconciling Motorvisual Impairment and Facilitation Effects

Previous research on dual-tasks has shown that, under some circumstances, actions impair the perception of action-consistent stimuli, whereas, under other conditions, actions facilitate the perception of action-consistent stimuli. We propose a new model to reconcile these contrasting findings. The planning and control model (PCM) of motorvisual priming proposes that action planning binds categorical representations of action features so that their availability for perceptual processing is inhibited. Thus, the perception of categorically action-consistent stimuli is impaired during action planning. Movement control processes, on the other hand, integrate multi-sensory spatial information about the movement and, therefore, facilitate perceptual processing of spatially movement-consistent stimuli. We show that the PCM is consistent with a wider range of empirical data than previous models on motorvisual priming. Furthermore, the model yields previously untested empirical predictions. We also discuss how the PCM relates to motorvisual research paradigms other than dual-tasks.