PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Jude L. Thom
AU  - Anna C. Nobre
AU  - Freek van Ede
AU  - Dejan Draschkow
TI  - Head-direction tracks internally directed selective attention in visual working memory
AID  - 10.1101/2022.05.04.490654
DP  - 2022 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2022.05.04.490654
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/05/04/2022.05.04.490654.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/05/04/2022.05.04.490654.full
AB  - We shift our gaze even when we orient attention internally to visual representations in working memory. Here, we show the bodily orienting response associated with internal selective attention is widespread as it also includes the head. In three virtual reality (VR) experiments, participants remembered two visual items. After a working memory delay, a central colour cue indicated which item needed to be reproduced from memory. After the cue, head movements became biased in the direction of the memorised location of the cued memory item – despite there being no items to orient towards in the external environment. The head-direction bias had a distinct temporal profile from the gaze bias. Our findings reveal that directing attention within the spatial layout of visual working memory bears a strong relation to the overt head orienting response we engage when directing attention to sensory information in the external environment. The head-direction bias further demonstrates common neural circuitry is engaged during external and internal orienting of attention.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.