Stimulus-response Compatibility Effects Research Articles

Stimulus-Response Compatibility During Fighting Task Simulation: Influences of the Opponent's Spatial Codes on the Accuracy and Response Time.

Manual Reaction Time measures have been widely used to study interactions between perceptual, cognitive, and motor functions. The Stimulus-Response Compatibility is a phenomenon characterized through faster Manual Reaction Times when stimuli and response locations coincide (correspondent condition) than when they are on different sides (noncorrespondent condition). The present study adapted a protocol to study if the Stimulus-Response Compatibility effect can be detected during a virtual combat simulation. Twenty-seven participants were instructed to defend themselves by clicking a key in order to block the presented punch. Videos of two fighters were used, granting two types of basic strokes: the back fist, a punch performed with the dorsal part of the fighter's hand, starting at the opposite side to which it is directed; and the hook punch, performed with a clenched fist starting and finishing ipsilaterally. The Manual Reaction Times were different between the correspondent and noncorrespondent conditions, F(1, 26) = 9.925; p < .004; η2 = .276, with an Stimulus-Response Compatibility effect of 72ms. Errors were also different, F(1, 26) = 23.199; p < .001; η2 = .472, between the correspondent (13%) and the noncorrespondent conditions (23%). The study concluded that spatial codes presented at the beginning of the punch movement perception substantially influenced the response execution.

Association between Reaction Times in the Joint Simon Task and Personality Traits.

Joint go and no-go effects (joint Simon effects; JSEs) are considered to have a stimulus-response compatibility effect on joint reaction time tasks (joint Simon task) caused by the presence of other people. Additionally, JSEs are known to be associated with various social factors and are therefore a potential clinical marker for communicative function; however, the relationship with the personality that is associated with communication skills remains unclear. In this study, we focused on the association between JSE and personality traits. Thirty Japanese participants (fifteen women) were recruited. First, personality trait scores were obtained using the Japanese version of the ten-item personality inventory before the experiment. Second, we measured reaction times in the joint Simon task and single go and no-go tasks with the go signal presented on the congruent and incongruent sides. At last, we analyzed the association between reaction times and personality traits by using Spearman's correlation analysis. As a result, we observed two pairs with significant correlations: JSE and neuroticism and short reaction times in the joint condition and agreeableness. In conclusion, we identified potential psychological markers associated with the joint Simon task. These findings may lead to an additional hypothesis regarding the neurobiological mechanisms of JSEs.

Stimulus-response compatibility effects during object semantic categorisation: Evocation of grasp affordances or abstract coding of object size?

When the size of visual objects matches the size of the response required to perform the task, a potentiation effect has been reported, with faster responses in compatible than incompatible situations. Size compatibility effects have been taken as evidence of close perception-action interrelations. However, it is still unclear whether the effect arises from abstract coding of the size of stimulus and response or from the evocation of grasp affordances from visual objects. We aimed to disentangle the two interpretations. Two groups of 40 young adults categorised small and large objects presented in standardised size as natural or artefact objects. One group categorised manipulable objects that may be associated with small or large size properties and evoke power or precision grasp affordances. The other group categorised non-manipulable objects that may only be associated with small or large size properties. Categorisation responses were made by reaching and grasping a monotonic cylindric device with a power or precision grip in a grasping condition and with large or small touch responses in a control condition. Compatibility effects were found in both grasping and control conditions, independently of the manipulability or category of objects. Participants were faster when the size of the expected response matched the size of the object than when they mismatched, especially for power grasps or whole-hand touch responses. Overall findings support the abstract coding hypothesis and suggest that compatibility between the conceptual size of the object and the size of the hand response is sufficient to facilitate semantic categorisation judgements.

Compatibility effects with destination and origin of motion.

Previous studies highlighted spatial compatibility effects other than those strictly arising from stimulus-response locations. In particular, the so-called Destination Compatibility (DC) effect refers to faster responses for dynamic (i.e., moving) stimuli the end point of which is spatially compatible with the response key. Four experiments examined whether the DC effect also occurs with static visual stimuli symbolically representing either motion destination alone (Experiment 1a), or both motion origin and destination (Experiments 1b, 2a, and 2b). Overall, our results are consistent in showing a DC effect; most importantly, the present findings reveal a predominance of the effect of destination of motion over that of origin, even when both the starting and ending positions of the stimulus are symbolically represented and participants are instructed to respond according to motion origin. This finding suggests that the DC effect is independent from other stimulus-response compatibility (SRC) effects.

Stimulus-response compatibility effects during object semantic categorisation: evocation of grasp affordances or abstract coding of object size?

Stimulus-response compatibility effects during object semantic categorisation: evocation of grasp affordances or abstract coding of object size?

Reaction Time “Mismatch Costs” Change with the Likelihood of Stimulus–Response Compatibility

Dyadic interactions require dynamic correspondence between one’s own movements and those of the other agent. This mapping is largely viewed as imitative, with the behavioural hallmark being a reaction-time cost for mismatched actions. Yet the complex motor patterns humans enact together extend beyond direct-matching, varying adaptively between imitation, complementary movements, and counter-imitation. Optimal behaviour requires an agent to predict not only what is likely to be observed but also how that observed action will relate to their own motor planning. In 28 healthy adults, we examined imitation and counter-imitation in a task that varied the likelihood of stimulus–response congruence from highly predictable, to moderately predictable, to unpredictable. To gain mechanistic insights into the statistical learning of stimulus–response compatibility, we compared two computational models of behaviour: (1) a classic fixed learning-rate model (Rescorla–Wagner reinforcement [RW]) and (2) a hierarchical model of perceptual-behavioural processes in which the learning rate adapts to the inferred environmental volatility (hierarchical Gaussian filter [HGF]). Though more complex and hence penalized by model selection, the HGF provided a more likely model of the participants’ behaviour. Matching motor responses were only primed (faster) in the most experimentally volatile context. This bias was reversed so that mismatched actions were primed when beliefs about volatility were lower. Inferential statistics indicated that matching responses were only primed in unpredictable contexts when stimuli–response congruence was at 50:50 chance. Outside of these unpredictable blocks the classic stimulus–response compatibility effect was reversed: Incongruent responses were faster than congruent ones. We show that hierarchical Bayesian learning of environmental statistics may underlie response priming during dyadic interactions.

Deliberate control over facial expressions in motherhood. Evidence from a Stroop-like task

The deliberate control of facial expressions is an important ability in human interactions, in particular for mothers with prelinguistic infants. Because research on this topic is still scarce, we investigated the control over facial expressions in a Stroop-like paradigm. Mothers of 2–6 months old infants and nullipara women produced smiles and frowns in response to verbal commands written on distractor faces of adults or infants showing expressions of happiness or anger/distress. Analyses of video recordings with a machine classifier for facial expression revealed pronounced effects of congruency between the expressions required by the participants and those displayed by the face stimuli on the onset latencies of the deliberate facial expressions. With adult distractor faces this Stroop effect was similar whether participants smiled or frowned. With infant distractor faces mothers and non-mothers showed indistinguishable Stroop effects on smile responses; however, for frown responses, the Stroop effect in mothers was smaller than in non-mothers. We suggest that for frown responses in mothers when facing infants, the effect of mimicry or stimulus response compatibility, leading to the Stroop effect, is offset by a caregiving response or empathy.

Automatic facial reactions to emotional body expressions are not driven by emotional experience.

Perceiving emotional expressions automatically triggers a tendency to react with a matching facial expression. Although it is considered fundamental for healthy social interactions, the mechanism behind it is unclear. One prevalent explanation suggests that perceiving emotional expressions induces emotions in the observer and that it is these emotions that elicit the facial reactions. This study directly tested this hypothesis, investigating whether emotion elicitation is what drives the effect. Two experiments used a facial stimulus-response compatibility (SRC) paradigm-a widely used measure of the tendency to facially match emotional expressions-in which the irrelevant stimuli were happy and angry body postures. Reaction times were measured using facial electromyography. Experiment 1 replicated the known SRC effect to body postures using a simpler task with only one, prespecified, response. This established a novel variant of the paradigm in which the facial effects cannot be attributed to motor matching or response selection and which focuses specifically on the automatic components of the effect. Experiment 2 then added to this paradigm a habituation protocol and self-report ratings of affective valence. Results indicated that emotional body postures elicited limited emotional reactions, which were further habituated following repeated presentations. However, the facial SRC effect did not undergo such habituation, suggesting that reducing emotional reaction to observed expressions does not reduce the tendency to match those expressions. Our findings do not support the emotion elicitation hypothesis and suggest that automatic facial reactions to emotional body postures are not driven by emotional reactions to the stimuli. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Emotions in motion: affective valence can influence compatibility effects with graspable objects.

Previous studies showed that affective valence (positive, negative) influences Stimulus-Response Compatibility (SRC) effects elicited by both relevant and irrelevant spatial dimensions. We tested whether valence influences SRC effects when the irrelevant spatial dimension rather than being conveyed by the entire stimulus location is conveyed by the location of the stimulus' graspable part, i.e., the Handle-Response (H-R) compatibility effect. Participants saw objects with either a flower, a spider or nothing on their handle and categorized them as kitchen utensils or garage tools through button presses. In Experiment 1, a random presentation of valenced stimuli was used, whereas in Experiment 2 differently valenced stimuli were arranged in different blocks. Furthermore, participants in Experiment 2 could be spider-fearful or not. In Experiment 1, an H-R compatibility effect occurred for response latencies, regardless of whether stimuli presented a negative, positive or no element on their handle. In Experiment 2 the effect occurred only when a positive element was shown on the object's handle. In addition, spider-fearful individuals showed significantly slower responses when the element appearing on the object's handle had a negative valence. These results suggest that the SRC effect observed with pictures of graspable objects may be sensitive to the affective characteristics of stimuli and that approach/avoidance response tendencies may also depend on individual differences (being spider-fearful or not).

The effect of irrelevant response dimension on stimulus response compatibility

The well-known Stroop, Simon, and Eriksen flanker effects reflect the influence of an irrelevant dimension of a stimulus on task performance. In contrast, this study investigated the effect of an irrelevant (color) dimension of a response on performance. In Experiment 1, participants performed a color-discrimination Simon task with left and right responses. The novel feature of the experiment was that two-colored labels were presented at the bottom of the display, on the left and right side respectively, which were irrelevant to the task and had nothing to do with response keys. The results revealed a Color Compatibility effect. Participants responded faster and more accurately when the color of the label appearing on the same side (left or right) as the correct response matched the color of the stimulus than when it did not. Experiment 2A replicated the Color Compatibility effect. Experiment 2B showed that the Color Compatibility effect in reaction times disappeared when color was irrelevant to both the stimulus and the response. The results suggest that the presence of an irrelevant color dimension at response may result in a stimulus-response compatibility (SRC) effect as long as the color is represented in working memory. These studies have implications for the dimensional overlap model and the broader understanding of stimulus-response compatibility effects.

Negative affordance effect: automatic response inhibition triggered by handle orientation of non-target object

Habituated response tendency associated with affordance of an object is automatically inhibited if this affordance cue is extracted from a non-target object. This study presents two go/no-go experiments investigating whether this response control operates in response selection processes and whether it is linked to conflict-monitoring mechanisms. In the first experiment, the participants performed responses with one hand, and in the second experiment, with two hands. In addition, both experiments consisted of two blocks with varying frequency of go conditions (25%-go vs. 75%-go). The non-target-related response inhibition effect was only observed in Experiment 2 when the task required selecting between two hands. Additionally, the results did not reveal patterns typically related to conflict monitoring when go-frequency is manipulated and when a stimulus–response compatibility effect is examined relative to congruency condition of the previous trial. The study shows that the non-target-related response inhibition assists hand selection and is relatively resistant to conflict-monitoring processes.

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.

A Direct Comparison of Spatial Attention and Stimulus-Response Compatibility between Mice and Humans.

Mice are becoming an increasingly popular model for investigating the neural substrates of visual processing and higher cognitive functions. To validate the translation of mouse visual attention and sensorimotor processing to humans, we compared their performance in the same visual task. Mice and human participants judged the orientation of a grating presented on either the right or left side in the visual field. To induce shifts of spatial attention, we varied the stimulus probability on each side. As expected, human participants showed faster RTs and a higher accuracy for the side with a higher probability, a well-established effect of visual attention. The attentional effect was only present in mice when their response was slow. Although the task demanded a judgment of grating orientation, the accuracy of the mice was strongly affected by whether the side of the stimulus corresponded to the side of the behavioral response. This stimulus-response compatibility (Simon) effect was much weaker in humans and only significant for their fastest responses. Both species exhibited a speed-accuracy trade-off in their responses, because slower responses were more accurate than faster responses. We found that mice typically respond very fast, which contributes to the stronger stimulus-response compatibility and weaker attentional effects, which were only apparent in the trials with slowest responses. Humans responded slower and had stronger attentional effects, combined with a weak influence of stimulus-response compatibility, which was only apparent in trials with fast responses. We conclude that spatial attention and stimulus-response compatibility influence the responses of humans and mice but that strategy differences between species determine the dominance of these effects.

Individual Response–Effect Congruencies Modulate Subsequent Stimulus–Response Compatibility Effects

Abstract Expectations of the outcomes of our actions can directly influence response behavior. In 2 experiments, we demonstrate that the congruency between a response and its unanticipated effect (R-E congruency) can also influence task performance by moderating the magnitude of stimulus-response (S-R) compatibility effects on a subsequent trial. This is the case when response effects are physical locations that precede a location-based S-R compatibility task and when response effects are spatial words preceding a spatial word-based S-R compatibility task (Experiment 1). However, prior R-E congruency does not influence the subsequent S-R compatibility effect when the stimulus type has changed from location to word or vice versa (Experiment 2). In both experiments, the correspondence between the spatial information of the S-R task stimulus and prior effect also influences the S-R compatibility effect. We discuss how conflict control and event coding may lead to the observed results and why their influence is specific to spatial mode.

Investigation of Response Dynamics in the Simon Task with Mouse Tracking Methodology.

Introduction:Despite their popularity in Neuropsychology, reaction time analysis based on the subtraction and additive factors methods is critiqued for not paying adequate attention to the dynamical nature of cognition. Mouse-tracking methods aim to cater to this need by allowing researchers to explore response dynamics during cognitive tasks by recording mouse trajectories.Methods:A mouse-tracking adaptation of the Simon task is developed to explore decision-making dynamics in different stimulus-response compatibility conditions. The study focuses on the effects of stimulus design decisions on mouse trajectories, including relocation of the choice buttons from the top corners to the bottom and the mid-session reversal of stimulus-response mapping on mouse responses.Results:Consistent with previous studies, significant stimulus-response compatibility effects were observed, where contrasts over mouse-tracking measures had larger effect sizes than simple reaction time contrasts. Moreover, in the conflict trials, asymmetric response trajectories towards the left and right corners were observed. Moving the response buttons from top to bottom increased the degree of asymmetry between the mouse trajectories towards the bottom-left and bottom-right corners during the conflict condition. Finally, in the reverse Simon task, the switch to a new color-response mapping inflicted the largest effect on the average number of y-flips.Conclusion:Mouse tracking provides measures suitable for exploring decision-making dynamics beyond classical reaction time analysis, provided asymmetries due to the starting position and response layout are considered during experiment design.

Is effector visibility critical for performance asymmetries in the Simon task? Evidence from hand- and foot-press responses.

The Simon effect is a stimulus-response compatibility effect in which the spatial dimension of the stimulus is task-irrelevant. This effect is often larger in reaction time (RT) for the stimulus located on the dominant-hand side of participants, for most of which it is the right hand, due to dominant-hand keypress responses being faster than non-dominant-hand responses. Experiment 1demonstrated that pedal-press responses with the left and right feet show a similar asymmetry, favoring the right response for right-footed persons. The asymmetric pattern for keypress responses was absent in results of Wallace (Journal of Experimental Psychology, 93, 163-168, 1972) when participants were not permitted to see the response keys or their hands placed on the keys at any time during the experiment, whereas we found the asymmetric pattern in a recent study when participants placed their hands on the keys prior to their being covered up. Experiments 2 and 3 showed that the Simon effect asymmetry for RT was evident even when participants were prevented from seeing the response device and their responding hands or feet. Although both hands and feet showed a Simon effect asymmetry in RT, consideration of incorrect responses suggested that whereas the asymmetry for hands is not due to a response bias, that for the feet may be due at least in part to such bias. Regardless, our results suggest that the Simon effect asymmetry is mainly an artifact of comparing conditions for which one response is made by the faster dominant right effector and the other with the slower non-dominant left effector.

Sense and Sensitivity - Using Spatial Response-Compatibility Effects to Investigate Ambiguous Word Meaning.

We investigated sensitivity for the vertical meaning of the German particle ab by means of stimulus-response compatibility effects. In German, the particle ab is ambiguous and can take on a vertical meaning (downward) as in Auf und Ab (engl. up and down), but it can also take on nonvertical or nonspatial meanings as in Ab und An (engl. from time to time). We show that the particle ab only creates a spatial compatibility effect relative to the German particle auf (Experiment 1) but not relative to the particle an (Experiment 2). Furthermore, as participants executed upward versus downward responses in both Experiments 1 and 2, the mere vertical antagonism of the responses was insufficient to instill a verticality-based compatibility effect. In addition, the compatibility effect was restricted to the transparent version of the particle. If a letter sequence corresponding to the particles was presented in a semantically and morphologically opaque way (e.g., the letters ab were embedded in the German word knabe, engl. boy), no compatibility effect was found, underlining that the effect was due to word meanings rather than visual features. The results underscore the boundary conditions for using compatibility effects in investigating lexical and semantic spatial processing in humans.

Involvement of the primary motor cortex in the early processing stage of the affective stimulus-response compatibility effect in a manikin task

Compatible (positive approaching and negative avoiding) and incompatible (positive avoiding and negative approaching) behavior are of great significance for biological adaptation and survival. Previous research has found that reaction times of compatible behavior are shorter than the incompatible behavior, which is termed the stimulus-response compatibility (SRC) effect. However, the underlying neurophysiological mechanisms of the SRC effect applied to affective stimuli is still unclear. Here, we investigated preparatory activities in both the left and right primary motor cortex (M1) before the execution of an approaching-avoiding behavior using the right index finger in a manikin task based on self-identity. The results showed significantly shorter reaction times for compatible than incompatible behavior. Most importantly, motor-evoked potential (MEP) amplitudes from left M1 stimulation were significantly higher during compatible behavior than incompatible behavior at 150 and 200 ms after stimulus presentation, whereas the reversed was observed for right M1 stimulation with lower MEP amplitude in compatible compared to incompatible behavior at 150 ms. The current findings revealed the compatibility effect at both behavioral and neurophysiological levels, indicating that the affective SRC effect occurs early in the motor cortices during stimulus processing, and MEP modulation at this early processing stage could be a physiological marker of the affective SRC effect.

Automatic facial reactions to facial, body, and vocal expressions: A stimulus-response compatibility study.

When perceiving emotional facial expressions there is an automatic tendency to react with a matching facial expression. A classic explanation of this phenomenon, termed the matched motor hypothesis, highlights the importance of topographic matching, that is, the correspondence in body parts, between perceived and produced actions. More recent studies using mimicry paradigms have challenged this classic account, producing ample evidence against the matched motor hypothesis. However, research using stimulus-response compatibility (SRC) paradigms usually assumed the effect relies on topographic matching. While mimicry and SRC share some characteristics, critical differences between the paradigms suggest conclusions cannot be simply transferred from one to another. Thus, our aim in the present study was to directly test the matched motor hypothesis using SRC. Specifically, we investigated whether observing emotional body postures or hearing emotional vocalizations produces a tendency to respond with one's face, despite completely different motor actions being involved. In three SRC experiments, participants were required to either smile or frown in response to a color cue, presented concurrently with stimuli of happy and angry facial (experiment 1), body (experiment 2), or vocal (experiment 3) expressions. Reaction times were measured using facial EMG. Whether presenting facial, body, or vocal expressions, we found faster responses in compatible, compared to incompatible trials. These results demonstrate that the SRC effect of emotional expressions does not require topographic matching. Our findings question interpretations of previous research and suggest further examination of the matched motor hypothesis.

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.