Learning to Expect and Monitor the Future : How Fast Do Anticipatory Saccades Toward Future Action Consequences Emerge?

Kurzfassung/Abstract

When an action contingently yields the same effect, we form bidirectional action-effect associations that allow us to anticipate the effects of our actions. Importantly, our eyes already move toward the expected future location of our actions’ effects in anticipation of them, that is, we perform anticipatory saccades. These anticipatory saccades are linked to a proactive effect-monitoring process that prepares the comparison of expected and actual effect. However, how fast such anticipatory saccades emerge (i.e., how fast learning leads to monitoring) is unknown. To address this question, correct left/right responses were followed by a visual effect either on the same side (response-effect compatible) or on the opposite side (response-effect incompatible). In Experiment 1, action-effect compatibility switched after sequences of four, eight, or 12 trials (randomly allocated; partly predictable environment). In Experiment 2, random trials (two to seven) separated sequences of three, five, or seven experimental trials. Again, action-effect compatibility switched after a sequence of trials and sequences were randomly allocated (unpredictable environment). In both experiments, participants started to perform anticipatory saccades toward future effects after experiencing a new action-effect mapping once/twice (response-effect compatible/incompatible). That is, a single to two action-effect (re-)learning instances were sufficient to develop action-effect associations that trigger attentional shifts toward the expected future consequences of our actions (i.e., monitoring processes), whereas influences on action selection are only observed after a substantially larger number of (re-)learning instances. These results suggest that monitoring processes modulate the expression of action-effect associations in action planning based on observed action-effect contingencies.