Remote binding counts: measuring distractor-response binding effects online

Birte Moeller,Christian Frings

doi:10.1007/s00426-020-01413-1

Abstract

Bindings between stimulus- and response features have received increasing attention in recent research and theorizing regarding human action control. Apparently, very simple mechanisms that lead to feature binding and retrieval of recently integrated features have an important influence on planning and execution of actions. Regarding the importance of these mechanisms, it seems to be reasonable to test whether they can be measured outside of a formal laboratory situation. Here we ran an online version of the distractor-response binding task reaching participants via crowdsourcing. Distractor-response binding effects were significant in this setup showing that basic mechanisms of feature binding and retrieval indeed influence human action in less formal situations. Besides arguing for the generality and robustness of the effect practical implications are discussed.

Highlights

Feature-binding is an important mechanism in action control and has increasingly gained interest in recent years (Henson, Eckstein, Waszak, Frings, & Horner, 2014)
Carrying out a simple response like a keypress leads to integration of response features with features of the stimuli, present at responding and effect features resulting from the response
Sample sizes in distractor-response binding studies in the laboratory range from less than twenty (e.g., Moeller & Frings, 2011) to more than 80 participants (e.g., Giesen, Frings, & Rothermund, 2012), with many studies drawing around thirty participants (e.g., Moeller & Frings, 2014)

Summary

Introduction

Feature-binding is an important mechanism in action control and has increasingly gained interest in recent years (Henson, Eckstein, Waszak, Frings, & Horner, 2014). Carrying out a simple response like a keypress leads to integration of response features with features of the stimuli, present at responding and effect features resulting from the response. Extending the concept of Kahneman and Treisman (1984) object files, integration is assumed to result in an event file that includes (binary) bindings between feature pairs (Hommel, 2004; Hommel, Müsseler, Aschersleben, & Prinz, 2001). According to the Binding and Retrieval in Action Control framework (Frings et al, 2020), these core mechanisms of feature integration and retrieval impact behavior observed in various paradigms, used to study human action control (e.g., task switching, negative priming, Posner cueing). The same mechanisms might play a role in action related areas

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