Abstract
Everyday tasks seldom involve isolate actions but sequences of them. We can see whether previous actions influence the current one by exploring the response time to controlled sequences of stimuli. Specifically, depending on the response-stimulus temporal interval (RSI), different mechanisms have been proposed to explain sequential effects in two-choice serial response tasks. Whereas an automatic facilitation mechanism is thought to produce a benefit for response repetitions at short RSIs, subjective expectancies are considered to replace the automatic facilitation at longer RSIs, producing a cost-benefit pattern: repetitions are faster after other repetitions but they are slower after alternations. However, there is not direct evidence showing the impact of subjective expectancies on sequential effects. By using a fixed sequence, the results of the reported experiment showed that the repetition effect was enhanced in participants who acquired complete knowledge of the order. Nevertheless, a similar cost-benefit pattern was observed in all participants and in all learning blocks. Therefore, results of the experiment suggest that sequential effects, including the cost-benefit pattern, are the consequence of automatic mechanisms which operate independently of (and simultaneously with) explicit knowledge of the sequence or other subjective expectancies.
Highlights
We unfold our actions within the context of other actions and often we need to execute our action responses very fast
In two-choice serial response tasks with short response and the next stimulus (RSI), it is commonly observed a first-order repetition effect: response repetitions are faster than response alternations
Whereas the first-order repetition effect is supposed to rely on an automatic facilitation mechanism, based on the memory trace of the previous stimulus-response event [3,4], the higher-order repetition effect is considered to reflect response-monitoring activity, which would be higher for response alternations [6]
Summary
We unfold our actions within the context of other actions and often we need to execute our action responses very fast. According to the temporal interval between the response and the stimulus (RSI) and to the number of previous events that are considered, different sequential effects can be observed. When several previous events are considered, a cost-benefit pattern is observed: response alternations are faster after other alternations but they are slower after repetitions. In a different but analogous paradigm, Perruchet et al [15] tried to discover the participants running expectancy by asking them to make a judgment in each trial In their task, either tones alone or tones followed by a visual stimulus (a square) were presented randomly. The cost-benefit pattern observed in two-choice tasks may reflect a dissociation from active expectancies if the gamblers fallacy held; whereas the gamblers fallacy would predict an alternation after a long run of repetitions, it is, slower. If the cost-benefit pattern was caused by automatic mechanisms, it should be observed regardless of the acquired knowledge
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