In Exp. 3, observers were asked to place four cued items (indicated by thick black outlines) first, and four uncued items later. We manipulated the stability of the last four items (uncued items)only while participants placed the first four (cued items).

Across 3 experiments, we found that when to-be-placed items were stable, observers took less time to sample them when they were selected for action later. This indicates that -through visual exposure- memory traces build up for prospective items, facilitating subsequent encoding.

In the SHUFFLED condition, we randomly swapped the locations of to-be-placed items before participants accessed the Model grid, which should interfere with the build-up of memory traces for unplaced items.

We asked whether memory traces are formed for these prospective (non-selected) items. To this end, our participants were tasked to reproduce a model grid (left) by dragging items from a resource grid (right) to their correct positions in the workspace (middle).

For instance, when using a shopping list, we may select a few items for immediate action, while being passively exposed to other (prospective) items on the list.

🎉New paper out in JEP:HPP with@andresahakian.bsky.social @suryagayet.bsky.social @chrispaffen.bsky.social and Stefan Van der Stigchel. We asked whether memory traces are formed for items that have not yet been selected for immediate action, while we are actively sampling targets for imminent action.