Spatial Stimulus-response Compatibility Research Articles

Incidental learning in music reading: The music contingency learning task.

The present report investigated whether nonmusicians can incidentally learn musical skills needed for sight-reading. On each trial, participants identified a note name written inside of a note on the musical staff. In Experiment 1, each note was presented frequently with the congruent note name (e.g., "do" with the note for "do") and rarely with the incongruent names (e.g., "do" with the note for "fa"). With or without deliberate learning instructions, a robust contingency learning effect was observed: faster responses for congruent trials compared with incongruent trials. Participants also explicitly identified the meaning of the note positions more accurately than chance. Experiment 2 ruled out the potential influence of preexisting knowledge on the contingency learning effect by presenting notes most often with an incongruent note name. Robust learning was again observed, suggesting that participants acquired sufficient knowledge of musical notation to produce automatic influences on behaviour (e.g., akin to the interference effect previously found in skilled musicians). A congruency effect was additionally observed in Experiment 2, however. Experiment 3 further explored to what extent this congruency effect might be due to prior music knowledge and/or spatial stimulus-response compatibility between note and response locations (analogous to the SMARC effect). Overall, our results open up new avenues for investigating the incidental learning of complex material, musical or otherwise, and for reinforcing learning even further.

Interaction mechanism between location and sequence in letter cognition

A previous study used days as a sequence symbol to investigate the interaction mechanism between location and sequence in sequence symbol cognition; the study findings suggested that the spatial stimulus-response compatibility effect and the Simon effect could not co-exist with the SNARC-like effect when processing sequence symbols. The previous study did not include the influence of the difficulty of identifying sequence symbols on the Simon effect in the investigation, so it is unclear whether the conclusion about processing sequence symbols with considerable identification difficulty can be extended to the processing of sequence symbols with less identification difficulty. Therefore, the present study explored letters that have a low level of identification difficulty to investigate the interaction mechanism between location and sequence in sequence symbol cognition. Participants were asked to classify a probe letter, which was randomly displayed on the left or right side of the screen, according to its location (Experiment 1), its sequence (Experiment 2) or its colour (Experiment 3). The results indicated that (1) only the spatial stimulus-response compatibility effect and Simon effect were present in the letter location classification task and letter colour classification task, respectively. (2) The Simon effect co-existed with the SNARC-like effect, and these two effects interacted with each other in the letter sequence classification task. From these results, it can be concluded that the task determines whether the Simon effect and the SNARC-like effect can co-exist, with differences presented across sequence symbols.

Visual selection and response selection without effector selection in tasks with circular arrays.

Charles Eriksen and colleagues conducted influential visual-search experiments with circular arrays for which the responses were either vocal naming or unimanual left-right switch movements. These methods have the advantages of the stimuli being equidistant from a centered fixation point and allowing study of visual selection and response selection when effector selection is not required, as in the more typical case in which responses are key presses of distinct fingers. Other researchers have used similar spatial arrangements, but with aimed movements of the limb or of a mouse-controlled cursor to study effects of stimulus identification, visual search, spatial stimulus-response compatibility, response-effect compatibility, and practice/transfer in isolation and jointly. We systematically review studies in these areas that include visual selection and response selection and execution, and examine implications of their results for the role of effector selection. Also, we illustrate that as one moves from simpler to more complex tasks, the results are consistent with a basic information-processing framework in which stimulus identification and selection of a target response location are distinct from selecting, planning, and moving an effector to the targeted location.

Training With Direct Versus Indirect Spatial Stimulus–Response Compatibility in Combat Sports

The study examined effects of spatial stimulus-response compatibility on response time and response accuracy in 20 novice combat sport athletes. Two equivalent groups, based on initial reaction time measures, were required to perceive and move quickly and accurately in response to an unspecific visual stimulus presented on a large screen during the two types of perceptual training in eight laboratory sessions. One group reacted by moving the fist toward the stimulus location on the target (direct compatibility condition). Another group was required to move the fist away from target in the opposite direction (indirect compatibility condition). Specifically, the indirect compatibility group achieved faster reaction times than the direct compatibility group during the two posttests containing video-projected attacks of the opponents, and in one of the two posttests containing real opponents' attacks. Results seem to reveal higher combat performance against real opponents when athletes trained with an indirect stimulus-response compatibility condition.

The influence of the location of ordered symbols on the ordinal position effect: The involvement of the task performed

Since the ordinal position effect was identified, several studies have investigated its mechanism in various contexts; however, how the space location of ordinal symbols influences this effect remains unclear. Thus, the present study explored Chinese words representing the day before yesterday, yesterday, tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow as ordinal symbols to investigate how the stimulus space location influences the ordinal position effect across different task contexts. We randomly and equally presented days on the left or right location of a display and asked participants to perform a stimulus space location, a stimulus colour and a stimulus order classification task in three consecutive experiments, respectively. The results revealed that the spatial stimulus-response compatibility effect and Simon effect prevailed in the stimulus space location and colour classification task. Conversely, the ordinal position effect prevailed in the stimulus order classification task. These results suggested that (1) the spatial stimulus-response compatibility effect (or Simon effect) and the ordinal position effect cannot appear simultaneously in some experimental contexts and that (2) the task context predicted which of these effects prevailed. From these results, we conclude that the ordinal symbols could be coded depending on multiple reference frames, including spatial and non-spatial reference frame, and the use of the reference frame was mediated by the task context.

An Investigation of Spatial Stimulus-Response Compatibility Effects Based on German Particles

In the current study, we tested if stimulus-response (SR) compatibility effects of spatially ambiguous words depend on a semantic priming context. Although many words, including spatial words, can take on several meanings, this is an open question. From Experiments 1 to 3, we manipulated the likelihood that the vertical meaning of the German particles auf and ab was processed by (1) instructing the processing of vertical meaning in Experiment 1, but not in Experiments 2 and 3, and (2) by using verbs that either primed (Experiments 1 and 2) or did not prime (Experiments 1-3) the targets' vertical meanings. Spatial SR compatibility effects resulted, regardless of whether or not the processing of the vertical meaning was instructed and the vertical meaning was primed. Results suggest that the selection between vertically discriminated responses could be sufficient to elicit the participants' extraction of the vertical meaning of the ambiguous particles.

Spatial perspective taking mediated by whole-body motor simulation.

Humans can envision the world from other people's viewpoints. To explore the embodied process of such spatial perspective taking, we examined whether action related to a whole-body movement modulates performance on spatial perspective-taking tasks. Results showed that when participants responded by putting their left/right foot or left/right hand forward, actions congruent with a movement's direction (clockwise/counterclockwise) reduced RTs relative to incongruent actions. In contrast, actions irrelevant to a movement (a left/right hand index-finger response) did not affect performance. Furthermore, we demonstrated that this response congruency effect cannot be explained by either spatial stimulus-response compatibility or sensorimotor interference. These results support the involvement of simulated whole-body movement in spatial perspective taking. Moreover, the findings revealed faster foot responses than hand responses during spatial perspective taking, whereas the opposite result was obtained during a simple orientation judgment task without spatial perspective taking. Overall, our findings highlight the important role of motor simulation in spatial perspective taking. (PsycINFO Database Record

Flowers and spiders in spatial stimulus-response compatibility: does affective valence influence selection of task-sets or selection of responses?

ABSTRACTThe present study examined the effect of stimulus valence on two levels of selection in the cognitive system, selection of a task-set and selection of a response. In the first experiment, participants performed a spatial compatibility task (pressing left and right keys according to the locations of stimuli) in which stimulus-response mappings were determined by stimulus valence. There was a standard spatial stimulus-response compatibility (SRC) effect for positive stimuli (flowers) and a reversed SRC effect for negative stimuli (spiders), but the same data could be interpreted as showing faster responses when positive and negative stimuli were assigned to compatible and incompatible mappings, respectively, than when the assignment was opposite. Experiment 2 disentangled these interpretations, showing that valence did not influence a spatial SRC effect (Simon effect) when task-set retrieval was unnecessary. Experiments 3 and 4 replaced keypress responses with joystick deflections that afforded approach/avoidance action coding. Stimulus valence modulated the Simon effect (but did not reverse it) when the valence was task-relevant (Experiment 3) as well as when it was task-irrelevant (Experiment 4). Therefore, stimulus valence influences task-set selection and response selection, but the influence on the latter is limited to conditions where responses afford approach/avoidance action coding.

Hand- and Foot-Controlled Dual-Tracking Task Performance Together with a Discrete Spatial Stimulus-Response Compatibility Task

ABSTRACTA multi-task paradigm involving dual tracking for hand and foot and a discrete choice response task with signals presented in different modalities (visual–visual versus auditory–visual) was used to study the effect of spatial compatibility for various display-control configurations on performance. Delay in multi-task processing was observed when more than one task demanded the same cognitive resources for processing. Compatibility between stimuli and responses for the discrete response task was found to significantly affect the amount of delay in overall multi-task performance. When two fingers of the left hand were used for responses in the spatial compatibility task, there was an absence of salient frame of reference in the horizontal right–left dimension. Compared with the visual–visual signal presentation, the auditory–visual signal presentation resulted in significantly higher hand-tracking errors, response times, and response errors, implying that mixed-modality stimulus presentation for a discrete response task has an adverse effect on multi-task time-sharing, probably due to response conflict and the effects of shifting between visual and auditory modalities across trials. We conclude by providing ergonomics design implications and recommendations for multi-task environments to facilitate human–machine system design and improve overall system performance.

EP 83. Neural correlates of age-related changes in cognitive action control

Introduction Healthy aging has been associated with a decrease in cognitive action control, but the underlying neural mechanisms are still elusive. The spatial stimulus-response compatibility (SRC) task captures this aspect of cognitive control, as it requires overcoming predominant but incorrect action tendencies to enable correct responding. Aim To identify brain areas that change their action-control-related activity with age. Methods Using fMRI we measured brain activity in a large sample of adults recruited from the population-based 1000BRAINS study (n = 234; mean age 52.5 years; 130 males) while performing an SRC task. Participants were instructed to give a speeded response to lateralized visual stimuli with the ipsilateral (spatially compatible) or contralateral (spatially incompatible) hand. Effects of incompatibility and age on performance [reaction time (RT) and error rate (ER)] were tested via an analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) with compatibility as within-subject factor and age as covariate. Effects on brain activity were also tested via an ANCOVA, additionally including as covariate the behavioral incompatibility effect (ICE; i.e., the difference between mean RT in incompatible and compatible trials). Results RT and ER globally increased under incompatibility, and the increase in RT became larger with advancing age as indicated by a significant interaction effect. Neurally, we observed incompatibility-related activity bilaterally in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), premotor cortex (PMC), intraparietal sulcus (IPS) and adjacent inferior and superior parietal lobule (IPL/SPL), anterior insula, (pre-)supplementary motor area [(pre)SMA] extending into midcingulate cortex (MCC), and cerebellum. Age-related hyper-activity in this network was restricted to bilateral DLPFC and cerebellum. In turn, a significant association with the behavioral ICE was found in the left IPS and SPL. Thus, while older adults showed a stronger recruitment of the cerebellum and DLPFC, high-ICE performers showed a stronger recruitment of the IPS/SPL. Conclusion We here replicated the significant increase of incompatibility costs with age ( Langner et al., 2014 ) in a substantially larger sample. Moreover, our results showing an age-related increase of task-dependent activation within the DLPFC provide an important complement to its previously demonstrated reduced resting-state connectivity. We thus argue that reduced connectivity during rest and increased recruitment during active tasks may represent complementary mechanisms of age-related network changes. In contrast, activity in the left IPS correlates with behavioral incompatibility costs, rather than age, highlighting a critical distinction between these. Our behavioral and neural data jointly corroborate a significant influence of age on cognitive action control, which is neurobiologically differentiable from behavioral performance.

Influence of emotional stimulus valence on inhibitory control in adults with and without ADHD.

Human behavior is influenced both by approach and avoidance automatic reactions to positive and negative stimulus, respectively, but these reactions have not been well studied in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) patients. Moreover, studies employing spatial stimulus-response compatibility tasks in ADHD and healthy control (HC) subjects are scarce and inconclusive. The present study investigated inhibitory control and emotional processing in ADHD adults with a modified stimulus-response compatibility task in which spatial and emotional features of affective stimuli had to be processed together to select the correct response. Manual responses to figures of Favorite and Rival soccer team players were measured, and compatible or incompatible responses were chosen according to the soccer team figure. Eighteen HC participants and sixteen ADHD adults performed the task. We found an ordinary spatial compatibility effect for the Favorite soccer team and a reversed one for the Rival team in the ADHD group but not in the HC group. The effects may be due to stronger approach and withdrawal reactions toward the Favorite soccer team and away from the Rival one, respectively, indicating poor inhibitory control for the ADHD group. These results show that differences between ADHD and HC subjects become prominent when response selection involves both emotional and spatial features of the stimulus.

Behavioral Advantages of the First-Person Perspective Model for Imitation.

Visuomotor information may be better conveyed through a first-person perspective than through a third-person perspective. However, few reports have shown a clear behavioral advantage of the first-person perspective because of the confounding factor of spatial stimulus–response compatibility. Most imitation studies have utilized visuospatial imitation tasks in which participants use the same body part as that used by the model, identified by its spatial position (i.e., the response action is predefined). In such studies, visuomotor information conveyed by the model does not appear to facilitate imitative behavior. We hypothesized that the use of the first-person perspective would facilitate more efficient imitative behavior than a third-person perspective when participants are asked to choose and reproduce an action identical to that of the model rather than to select the same body part; this task requires the analysis of both visual and motor information from the model rather than a simple assessment of spatial information. To test this hypothesis, we asked 15 participants to observe a model from two perspectives (first-person and third-person) with left or right hand laterality and to lift their index finger with an identical movement type (extension or flexion) as quickly as possible. Response latencies were shorter and fewer errors were made in trials using the first-person perspective than in those using the third-person perspective, regardless of whether the model used the right or left hand. These findings suggest that visuomotor information from the first-person perspective, without confounding effects of spatial information, facilitates efficient imitative behavior.

Spatial stimulus-response compatibility and affordance effects are not ruled by the same mechanisms.

Stimulus position is coded even if it is task-irrelevant, leading to faster response times when the stimulus and the response locations are compatible (spatial Stimulus–Response Compatibility–spatial SRC). Faster responses are also found when the handle of a visual object and the response hand are located on the same side; this is known as affordance effect (AE). Two contrasting accounts for AE have been classically proposed. One is focused on the recruitment of appropriate grasping actions on the object handle, and the other on the asymmetry in the object shape, which in turn would cause a handle-hand correspondence effect (CE). In order to disentangle these two accounts, we investigated the possible transfer of practice in a spatial SRC task executed with a S–R incompatible mapping to a subsequent affordance task in which objects with either their intact handle or a broken one were used. The idea was that using objects with broken handles should prevent the recruitment of motor information relative to object grasping, whereas practice transfer should prevent object asymmetry in driving handle-hand CE. A total of three experiments were carried out. In Experiment 1 participants underwent an affordance task in which common graspable objects with their intact or broken handle were used. In Experiments 2 and 3, the affordance task was preceded by a spatial SRC task in which an incompatible S–R mapping was used. Inter-task delays of 5 or 30 min were employed to assess the duration of transfer effect. In Experiment 2 objects with their intact handle were presented, whereas in Experiment 3 the same objects had their handle broken. Although objects with intact and broken handles elicited a handle-hand CE in Experiment 1, practice transfer from an incompatible spatial SRC to the affordance task was found in Experiment 3 (broken-handle objects), but not in Experiment 2 (intact-handle objects). Overall, this pattern of results indicate that both object asymmetry and the activation of motor information contribute to the generation of the handle-hand CE effect, and that the handle AE cannot be reduced to a SRC effect.

The Simon effect in action: planning and/or on-line control effects?

Choice reaction tasks are performed faster when stimulus location corresponds to response location (Simon effect). This spatial stimulus-response compatibility effect affects performance at the level of action planning and execution. However, when response selection is completed before movement initiation, the Simon effect arises only at the planning level. The aim of this study was to ascertain whether when a precocious response selection is requested, the Simon effect can be detected on the kinematics characterizing the online control phase of a non-ballistic movement. Participants were presented with red or green colored squares, which could appear on the right, left, above, or below a central cross. Depending on the square's color, participants had to release one of two buttons (right/left), then reach toward and press a corresponding lateral pad. We found evidence of the Simon effect on both action planning and on-line control. Moreover, the investigation of response conflict at the level of previous trials (i.e., n-1), a factor that might determine interference at the level of the current response, revealed a conflict adaptation process across trials. Results are discussed in terms of current theories concerned with the Simon effect and the distinction between action planning and control.

Anticipatory Regulation of Action Control in a Simon Task: Behavioral, Electrophysiological, and fMRI Correlates

With the present study we investigated cue-induced preparation in a Simon task and measured electroencephalogram and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data in two within-subjects sessions. Cues informed either about the upcoming (1) spatial stimulus-response compatibility (rule cues), or (2) the stimulus location (position cues), or (3) were non-informative. Only rule cues allowed anticipating the upcoming compatibility condition. Position cues allowed anticipation of the upcoming location of the Simon stimulus but not its compatibility condition. Rule cues elicited fastest and most accurate performance for both compatible and incompatible trials. The contingent negative variation (CNV) in the event-related potential (ERP) of the cue-target interval is an index of anticipatory preparation and was magnified after rule cues. The N2 in the post-target ERP as a measure of online action control was reduced in Simon trials after rule cues. Although compatible trials were faster than incompatible trials in all cue conditions only non-informative cues revealed a compatibility effect in additional indicators of Simon task conflict like accuracy and the N2. We thus conclude that rule cues induced anticipatory re-coding of the Simon task that did not involve cognitive conflict anymore. fMRI revealed that rule cues yielded more activation of the left rostral, dorsal, and ventral prefrontal cortex as well as the pre-SMA as compared to POS and NON-cues. Pre-SMA and ventrolateral prefrontal activation after rule cues correlated with the effective use of rule cues in behavioral performance. Position cues induced a smaller CNV effect and exhibited less prefrontal and pre-SMA contributions in fMRI. Our data point to the importance to disentangle different anticipatory adjustments that might also include the prevention of upcoming conflict via task re-coding.

Separating mental transformations and spatial compatibility effects in the own body transformation task

Laterality judgments about the left or right hand of a schematic human figure, made from the perspective of the figure, are faster and more accurate when the figure is presented in back-facing view as compared to front-facing view. Mental perspective transformation accounts of this finding have recently been challenged on grounds of a confounding of facing direction with spatial stimulus-response (S-R) compatibility (Gardner and Potts in Acta Psychol 137: 371-381, 2011). We report two experiments that introduced stimulus figures in an orientation that was neutral in terms of spatial S-R compatibility. Results revealed a stable back-facing advantage that cannot be explained by compatibility conflicts. Comparisons of these neutral stimuli and conditions with figures presented in upright or upside-down orientation, however, confirmed a substantial impact of spatial S-R compatibility in the latter conditions. The present experiments show that it is possible to distinguish between mental transformation and incompatibility costs allowing future work to focus on the specialized mental spatial transformation processes.

Early and late motor responses to action observation

Is a short visuomotor associative training sufficient to reverse the visuomotor tuning of mirror neurons in adult humans? We tested the effects of associative training on corticospinal modulation during action observation in the 100-320 ms interval after action onset. In two separate experiments, the acceleration of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)-induced movements was recorded before and after training participants to respond to observed acts with an opposite or similar behavior. Before training, TMS-induced accelerations mirrored the observed action at 250 and 320 ms. After training, responses at 250 ms were unchanged and still mirrored the stimuli, without any effect of training direction. Only at 320 ms, we observed training-dependent changes in evoked responses. A control experiment with non-biological rotational movements as visual stimuli indicated that spatial stimulus-response compatibility is not sufficient to account for the results of the two main experiments. We show that the effects of a short visuomotor associative training are not pervasive on the automatic mirror responses. 'Early' (250 ms) responses were not influenced by training. Conversely only 'late' (320 ms) responses changed according to the training direction. This biphasic time course indicates that two distinct mechanisms produce the automatic mirror responses and the newly learned visuomotor associations.

Is automatic imitation a specialized form of stimulus–response compatibility? Dissociating imitative and spatial compatibilities

In recent years research on automatic imitation has received considerable attention because it represents an experimental platform for investigating a number of interrelated theories suggesting that the perception of action automatically activates corresponding motor programs. A key debate within this research centers on whether automatic imitation is any different than other long-term S–R associations, such as spatial stimulus–response compatibility. One approach to resolving this issue is to examine whether automatic imitation shows similar response characteristics as other classes of stimulus–response compatibility. This hypothesis was tested by comparing imitative and spatial compatibility effects with a two alternative forced-choice stimulus–response compatibility paradigm. The stimulus on each trial was a left or right hand with either the index or middle finger tapping down. Speeded responses were performed with the index or middle finger of the right hand in response to the identity or the left–right spatial position of the stimulus finger. Two different tasks were administered: one that involved responding to the stimulus (S–R) and one that involved responding to the opposite stimulus (OS–R; i.e., the one not presented on that trial). Based on previous research and a connectionist model, we predicted standard compatibility effects for both spatial and imitative compatibility in the S–R task, and a reverse compatibility effect for spatial compatibility, but not for imitative compatibility, in the OS–R task. The results from the mean response times, mean percentage of errors, and response time distributions all converged to support these predictions. A second noteworthy result was that the recoding of the finger identity in the OS–R task required significantly more time than the recoding of the left–right spatial position, but the encoding time for the two stimuli in the S–R task was equivalent. In sum, this evidence suggests that the processing of spatial and imitative compatibility is dissociable with regard to two different processes in dual processing models of stimulus–response compatibility.

A comparison of semantic and spatial stimulus-response compatibility effects for human-machine interface design

The effects of semantic and spatial stimulus-response (S-R) compatibility were examined and compared with the use of an auditory choice reaction task paradigm in this experiment. Twenty-two participants responded to speech and non-speech signals presented at the left and right ears and were asked to respond to different conditions of congruence and incongruence of semantic and location codes of signals and responses. The results showed that participants processed the non-speech signals faster than the speech signals. The presence of both semantic and spatial compatibility for signals and responses was found to improve reaction time and response accuracy. Compared with spatial compatibility, the effect of semantic compatibility influences human performance more. Based on the results, practical ergonomics recommendations for enhanced human-machine interfaces were formulated which help industrial designers to improve overall system performance in machinery and equipment design.

Spatial stimulus–response compatibility for hand and foot controls with vertical plane visual signals

Most of the previous studies on spatial S–R compatibility have been limited to the use of hand controls with visual signals on horizontal displays. This study examined the performance of 38 right-handed and right-footed participants in a four choice spatial stimulus–response (S–R) compatibility task with the use of hand and foot controls to respond to visual signals in a vertical plane. The hand and foot dominance of participants was assessed with the Lateral Preference Inventory of Coren (1993). There was a strong spatial S–R compatibility effect in the task revealed by the significant interaction of visual signal position and response key position. The spatial compatibility effect for the above/below dimension was found to be significantly stronger than for the right/left dimension, and no prevalence of right/left over above/below spatial cue was observed in this study. In addition, S–R compatibility produced larger magnitude effect for the top signals compared with bottom ones. As expected, participants responded faster with hands than with feet, and responses from the right foot were faster than those from the left foot for the right-handed/footed participants tested here. The results of this study provide vital information for designing more effective human–machine interfaces with hand and foot controls interacting with vertical plane visual signals.