Distractor-based stimulus-response bindings retrieve decisions independent of motor programs

Abstract

Research on the distractor response binding (DRB) effect (Frings, Rothermund, & Wentura, 2007) suggests that distractors are integrated with target responses into an event file or stimulus-response (SR) episode. The whole event file is retrieved when the distractor is repeated and as a consequence distractors can retrieve previous responses. Nett, Bröder, and Frings (2015) argued that even decisions under uncertainty are integrated into event files and can later on be retrieved by distractors. However, their paradigm did not allow disentangling the retrieval of decisions from the retrieval of motor programs. Here we disentangled the retrieval of decisions and motor programs by assuring that retrieved decisions were not confounded by the repetitions of motor programs. In particular, in two experiments using a sequential prime-probe distractor priming task participants used other keys or other effectors for prime and probe responses; nevertheless repeated task-irrelevant distractors increased the probability that participants repeated the prime decision irrespective of motor programs. Thus, decision features can become part of an event-file and directly be retrieved by irrelevant information suggesting that bindings have an even higher flexibility and ubiquity than previously assumed.