Simple action alters attention towards visual features

Recent studies have revealed an action effect, in which a simple action towards a prime stimulus biases attention in a subsequent visual search in favor of objects that match the prime. However, to date the majority of research on the phenomenon has studied search elements that are exact matches to the prime, and that vary only on the dimension of color, making it unclear how general the phenomenon is. Here, across a series of experiments, we show that action can also prioritize objects that match the shape of the prime. Additionally, action can prioritize attention to objects that match only one of either the color or the shape of the prime, suggesting that action enhances individual visual features present in the acted-on objects. The pattern of results suggests that the effect may be stronger for color matches – prioritization for shape only occurred when attention was not drawn to the color of the prime, whereas prioritization for color occurred regardless. Taken together, the results reveal that a prior action can exert a strong influence on subsequent attention towards features of the acted-on object.