Abstract
This article provides an update of the Theory of Event Coding (TEC), which claims that perception and action are identical processes operating on the same codes – event files consisting of integrated networks of sensorimotor feature codes. The original version of the theory emphasized its representational underpinnings, but recent theoretical developments provide the basis for a more integrated view consisting of both the codes that are shared between perception and action in the control processes operating on these codes. Four developments are discussed in more detail: The degree to which the integration and retrieval of event files depends on current goals, how metacontrol states impact the handling of event files, how feature binding relates to event learning, and how the integration of non-social events relates to the integration of social events. Case examples using various versions of the Simon task are used to explain how the new version of TEC explains interactions between perception and action in non-social and social situations.
Highlights
The exact starting points of research agendas are notoriously difficult to determine, but it is fair to say that the 1960s were important for the systematic experimental investigation of interactions between perception and action
Theory of Event Coding (TEC) 2.0 leaves the original 1.0 version fully intact but provides a number of important specifications and extensions that strongly enhance the scope of the theory
It distinguishes between the control of the actual binding process – that is, the integration of currently available and memory-based, reactivated features into online event files – and the control of the retrieval or reactivation of a just-created online event file
Summary
The exact starting points of research agendas are notoriously difficult to determine, but it is fair to say that the 1960s were important for the systematic experimental investigation of interactions between perception and action. The original version of TEC did not provide much information about how the hypothesized representational codes interact with control processes, which was criticized by various commentators of the original target article and acknowledged in our reply (Hommel et al, 2001b; R2.7) To address this shortcoming, the recent developments of TEC were mainly aimed to integrate the representational assumptions with a functional control structure, i.e., to make derivations and predictions more specific and better testable, and to further broaden the scope of the theory. To provide a more detailed insight into how representational and control processes might be integrated, I apply old and new theoretical developments to experimental effects, where I take variants of the well-known Simon task as a case example, before concluding with a few desiderata
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