Affective influences without approach-avoidance actions: on the congruence between valence and stimulus-response mappings

Motonori Yamaguchi,Jing Chen

doi:10.3758/s13423-018-1547-1

Motonori Yamaguchi, Jing Chen

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-018-1547-1

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Abstract

The valence of stimuli can influence performance in the spatial stimulus–response compatibility task, but this observation could arise from the process of selecting responses or selecting stimulus–response mappings. The response-selection account proposes that spatial compatible and incompatible keypress responses serve as approaching and avoiding actions to a valenced target. The mapping-selection account suggests that there is congruence between stimulus valence and stimulus–response mappings; positive-compatible/negative-incompatible is more congruent than negative-compatible/positive-incompatible. Whereas affective valence was part of the target stimuli to which participants responded in previous studies, the present study isolated affective valence from the target by presenting an additional mapping cue separately from the target, so that spatially compatible and incompatible keypress responses could no longer serve as approaching and avoiding actions to valenced target stimuli. The present results revealed that responses were still faster when positive and negative mapping cues were assigned to the spatially compatible and incompatible mappings than when the assignment was reversed. The finding supports the mapping-selection account, indicating that positive and negative cues influence performance without approach–avoidance actions to valenced stimuli. The experiment provides important implications as to how tasks are represented and are dependent on affective processing.

Highlights

The valence of stimuli can influence performance in the spatial stimulus–response compatibility task, but this observation could arise from the process of selecting responses or selecting stimulus–response mappings
Many studies investigated the influences of affective valence, a component of emotion (Russell, 2003), on manual actions (e.g., Chen & Bargh, 1999; Eder & Rothermund, 2010; Solarz, 1960) or verbal responses (De Houwer, Crombez, Baeyens, & Hermans, 2001), but only few examined the influences of affective processing on such fundamental performance parameters as spatial stimulus–response compatibility (SRC) (Conde et al, 2011; Yamaguchi Chen, Mishler, & Proctor 2018)
The data are to be submitted to 2 × 2 × 2 (SOA: 0 ms vs. 500 ms) ANOVAs. These analyses only differ in how the factors are combined, with the interaction between cue valence and spatial compatibility in Conde et al.’s analysis corresponding to the main effect of cue-mapping assignment in Proctor’s analysis

Summary

Introduction

The valence of stimuli can influence performance in the spatial stimulus–response compatibility task, but this observation could arise from the process of selecting responses or selecting stimulus–response mappings. In choice-reaction tasks, responses are faster when the locations of stimulus and response correspond than when they do not (Fitts & Seeger, 1953) The influence of this spatial stimulus–response compatibility (SRC) is prevalent in operational settings, such as driving a car (Müsseler, Aschersleben, Arning, & Proctor, 2009; Sabic & Chen, 2017) and piloting an aircraft (Yamaguchi & Proctor, 2006). The researchers proposed that pressing keys that correspond to the stimulus location is equivalent to Bapproaching^ actions toward the stimuli, whereas pressing keys that do not correspond to the stimulus location is equivalent to Bavoiding^ actions They suggested that the reversed SRC effect was due to avoiding negative stimuli being more congruent than approaching these stimuli.

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