Abstract

In the present study, response trajectories were used in a picture–word conflict task to determine the timing of intermediate processing stages that are relatively inaccessible to response time measures. A marker was placed above or below the word ABOVE or BELOW so that its location was congruent or in conflict with the word’s meaning. To report either word location (above or below the marker) or word meaning, participants moved a mouse upward toward the appropriate top left or right answer corner on the display screen. Their response trajectories showed a number of distinctive features: First, at about 200 ms after stimulus onset (the “decision moment”), the trajectory abruptly began to arc toward the appropriate answer corner; second, when the word's meaning and position were in conflict, the trajectory showed an interruption that continued until the conflict was resolved. By varying the SOA of the word and marker onsets, we found that the word meaning and word position became available at approximately 325 ms and 251 ms, respectively, after their onsets, and that the delay to resolve conflicts was about 138 ms. The timing of these response trajectory events was more stable than any extracted from the final response times, demonstrating the power of response trajectories to reveal processing stages that are only poorly resolved, if at all, by response time measures. The online version of the original article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/ 10.3758/s13414-011-0261-0. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.3758/s13414-012-0300-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. F. T. van Vugt : P. Cavanagh Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception, CNRS UMR 8158, Universite Paris Descartes, Sorbonne Paris Cite Paris, France F. T. van Vugt (*) IMMM HMTMH, Emmichplatz 1, Hannover, Germany e-mail: f.t.vanvugt@gmail.com Atten Percept Psychophys (2012) 74:1075 DOI 10.3758/s13414-012-0300-5

Full Text
Published version (Free)

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call