We examined two questions regarding the interplay of planned and ongoing actions. First: Do endogenous (free-choice) and exogenous (forced-choice) triggers of action plans activate similar cognitive representations? And, second: Are free-choice decisions biased by future action goals retained in working memory? Participants planned and retained a forced-choice action to one visual event (A) while executing an immediate forced-choice or free-choice action (action B) to a second visual event (B); then the retained action (A) was executed. We found performance costs for action B if the two action plans partly overlapped versus did not overlap (partial repetition costs). This held true even when action B required a free-choice response indicating that forced-choice and free-choice actions are represented similarly. Partial repetition costs for free-choice actions were evident regardless of whether participants did or did not show free-choice response biases. Also, a subset of participants showed a bias to freely choose actions that did not overlap (vs. did overlap) with the action plan retained in memory, which led to improved performance in executing action B and recalling action A. Because cognitive effort is likely required to resolve feature code competition and confusion assumed to underlie partial repetition costs, this free-choice decision bias may serve to conserve cognitive effort and preserve the future action goal retained in working memory.
Often, we depart from an intended course of events to react to sudden situational demands (an intervening event) before resuming the originally planned action. Executing an action to an intervening event can be delayed if the features of this action plan partly overlap with an action plan retained in working memory (WM) compared to when they completely overlap or do not overlap. This delay is referred to as a partial repetition cost (PRC). PRCs are typically attributed to code confusion between action plans in WM. We tested this by training the component action plans extensively to reduce their reliance on WM. If PRCs are caused by code confusion within WM, then PRCs should be reduced and possibly eliminated with extensive practice. To test this, participants performed a partial repetition (PR) task after 0, 4 and 8.5 sessions of stimulus-response (S-R) training. In the PR task, participants saw two visual events. They retained an action to the first event while executing a speeded action to a second (intervening) event; afterwards, they executed the retained action. The two action plans either partly overlapped or did not overlap. Results showed that extensive (S-R and PR task) practice reduced but did not eliminate PRCs. A reduction in PRCs (code confusion) with practice is compatible with memory models that assume action events become more specific and less reliant on WM with practice. These findings merit expansions of PR tasks to other domains and broader conceptions of action plans that incorporate the formal structure of memory models.
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