Selective attention for action: New evidence from visual search studies

At any given time, only a small portion of information available in the visual environment can be selected and identified for conscious processing. Optimally, this selection should be based on the information necessary for control of current and planned behaviour and is most often described as selective attention. In this chapter, we discuss the models accounting for the selectivity of visual input from the perspective of functional connection between perception and action. This conception reflects the general idea that perceived events and planned actions share a common realm and view the attentional processes as selection-for-action. Some recent experimental evidence in line with such a selection-for-action view will be presented and some speculations about the underlying neural network will be made.