Simultaneous processing of visual information and planning of hand movements in a visuo-manual search task

When searching for a target with eye movements, saccades are planned and initiated while the visual information is still being processed. If hand movements are needed to perform a search task, can they too be planned while visual information from the current position is still being processed? To find out we studied a visual search task in which participants had to move their hand to shift a window through which they could see the items. The task was to find an O in a circle of Cs. The size of the window and the sizes of the gaps in the Cs were varied. Participants made fast, smooth arm movements between items and adjusted their movements, when on the items, to the window size. On many trials the window passed the target and returned, indicating that the next movement had been planned before identifying the item that was in view. © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.