Engagement of the motor system in position monitoring: reduced distractor suppression and effects of internal representation quality on motor kinematics.

The position monitoring task is a measure of divided spatial attention in which participants track the changing positions of one or more objects, attempting to represent positions with as much precision as possible. Typically precision of representations declines with each target object added to participants' attention load. Since the motor system requires precise representations of changing target positions, we investigated whether position monitoring would be facilitated by increasing engagement of the motor system.

Slower resting alpha frequency is associated with superior localisation of moving targets.

We examined the neurophysiological underpinnings of individual differences in the ability to maintain up-to-date representations of the positions of moving objects. In two experiments similar to the multiple object tracking (MOT) task, we asked observers to monitor continuously one or several targets as they moved unpredictably for a semi-random period. After all objects disappeared, observers were immediately prompted to report the perceived final position of one queried target.