Effects of Stimulus Orientation, Grouping and Alignment on Spatial S-R Compatibility

Abstract

Effects of stimulus orientation, grouping, and alignment on spatial compatibility were investigated in this study. With eight possible stimulus locations mapped to two response keys, the parallel orientation was found to be responded to faster than the orthogonal orientation. As to the grouping effect, responses for the split stimulus array were superior to that for the continuous one, which seems to be the result of better reference frames and clearer distinction between visual signals. Comparing the single relative position (Left-Right-Left-Right/Up-Down-Up-Down) alignment to the double one (Left-Left-Right-Right/Up-Up-Down-Down), no significant difference in RT was noted, but the single relative position alignment was less prone to error responses than the double one. The effect of stimulus grouping and alignment interacted significantly that the single relative position alignment with split grouping was responded to much faster than that with continuous grouping. Also, the significant interaction effect of orientation and S-R compatibility showed that the up-left and down-right stimulus-response mappings were better than the mappings the other way round.