bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.09.22.309237; this version posted September 23, 2020. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission. Eye and hand movements disrupt attentional control Abbreviated title: Failed attentional control Nina M. Hanning1,2*, Luca Wollenberg1,3, Donatas Jonikaitis4 & Heiner Deubel1 1. Allgemeine und Experimentelle Psychologie, Department Psychologie, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Leopoldstraße 13, 80802 München, Germany. 2. Department of Psychology, New York University, 6 Washington Place, 10003 New York, NY, USA. 3. Graduate School of Systemic Neurosciences, Department Biologie, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Großhaderner Str. 2, 82152, Planegg, Germany. 4. Department of Neurobiology and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305, USA * corresponding author: Nina M. Hanning (
[email protected]) Abstract Voluntary attentional control is the ability to selectively focus on a subset of visual information in the presence of other competing stimuli. While it is well established that this capability is a marker of cognitive control that allows for flexible, goal-driven behavior, it is still an open question how robust it is. In this study we contrasted voluntary attentional control with the most frequent source of automatic, involuntary attentional orienting in daily life—shifts of attention prior to goal-directed eye and hand movements. In a multi-tasking paradigm, we asked participants to attend at a location while planning eye or hand movements elsewhere. We observed that voluntary attentional control suffered with every simultaneous action plan.