Abstract
Withholding an action plan in memory for later execution can delay execution of another action if the actions share a similar (compatible) action feature (e.g., response hand). We investigated whether this phenomenon, termed compatibility interference (CI), occurs for responses associated with a target as well as responses associated with distractors in a visual selection task. Participants planned and withheld a sequence of keypress responses (with their right or left hand), according to the identity of a stimulus (A), and then immediately executed a keypress response (with their right or left hand) to a second stimulus (B), according to the identity of a target letter appearing alone or among distractor letters. Distractor letters were either response compatible or incompatible with the target and appeared either simultaneously with the target (Experiments 1A and 2) or 100 msec before the target (Experiment 1B). Also, stimulus—response mapping was either 1:1 (Experiment 1) or 2:1 (Experiment 2). Results showed that the response to the Stimulus B target was delayed when it required the same response hand as Stimulus A, as opposed to a different hand. Also, the target reaction time for Stimulus B was greater when the target was flanked by incompatible distractors than when it was flanked by compatible distractors. Moreover, the degree of CI was consistent across the compatible-, incompatible-, and no-distractor conditions, indicating that CI generalizes to responses associated with a target, but not to those associated with distractors. Thus, CI occurs at a response selection, not at a response activation stage. Implications for the code occupation account for CI (e.g., Stoet & Hommel, 1999, 2002) and an alternative account for CI are discussed.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Caessens, B., & Vandierendonck, A. (2002). Inhibition and blindness to response-compatible stimuli: A reappraisal. Acta Psychologica, 111, 45–57.
Coles, M. G. H., Gratton, G., Bashore, T. R., Eriksen, C. W., & Donchin, E. (1985). A psychophysiological investigation of the continuous flow model of human information processing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 11, 529–553.
Duncan, J., & Humphreys, G. W. (1989). Visual search and stimulus similarity. Psychological Review, 96, 433–458.
Eriksen, B. A., & Eriksen, C. W. (1974). Effects of noise letters upon the identification of a target letter in a nonsearch task. Perception & Psychophysics, 16, 143–149.
Eriksen, C. W., & Murphy, T. D. (1987). Movement of attentional focus across the visual field: A critical look at the evidence. Perception & Psychophysics, 42, 299–305.
Eriksen, C. W., & Schultz, D. W. (1979). Information processing in visual search: A continuous flow conception and experimental results. Perception & Psychophysics, 25, 249–263.
Gallese, V., Fadiga, L., Fogassi, L., & Rizzolatti, G. (1996). Action recognition in the premotor cortex. Brain, 119, 593–609.
Grice, G. R., Bouroughs, J. M., & Canham, L. (1984). Temporal dynamics of associative interference and facilitation produced by visual context. Perception & Psychophysics, 36, 499–507.
Hommel, B., Müsseler, J., Aschersleben, G., & Prinz, W. (2001). The theory of event coding (TEC): A framework for perception and action planning. Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 24, 849–878.
Jeannerod, M. (1997). The cognitive neuroscience of action. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
Keele, S. W., Cohen, A., & Ivry, R. (1990). Motor programs: Concepts and issues. In M. Jeannerod (Ed.), Attention and performance XIII: Motor representation and control (pp. 77–110). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Kornblum, S., Hasbroucq, T., & Osman, A. (1990). Dimensional overlap: Cognitive basis for stimulus—response compatibility—A model and taxonomy. Psychological Review, 97, 253–270.
Müsseler, J., & Hommel, B. (1997a). Blindness to response-compatible stimuli. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 23, 861–872.
Müsseler, J., & Hommel, B. (1997b). Detecting and identifying response-compatible stimuli. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 4, 125–129.
Müsseler, J., & Wühr, P. (2002). Response-evoked interference in visual encoding. In W. Prinz & B. Hommel (Eds.), Attention and performance XIX: Common mechanisms in perception and action (pp. 520–537). New York: Oxford University Press.
Prinz, W. (1990). A common coding approach to perception and action. In O. Neumann & W. Prinz (Eds.), Relationships between perception and action (pp. 167–201). Berlin: Springer.
Prinz, W. (1997). Perception and action planning. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 9, 129–154.
Sakata, H., Taira, M., Murata, A., & Mine, S. (1995). Neural mechanisms of visual guidance of hand actions in the parietal cortex of the monkey. Cerebral Cortex, 5, 429–438.
Stoet, G., & Hommel, B. (1999). Action planning and the temporal binding of response codes. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 25, 1625–1640.
Stoet, G., & Hommel, B. (2002). Interaction between feature binding in perception and action. In W. Prinz & B. Hommel (Eds.), Attention and performance XIX: Common mechanisms in perception and action (pp. 538–552). New York: Oxford University Press.
Taira, M., Mine, S., Georgopoulos, A. P., Murata, A., & Sakata, H. (1990). Parietal cortex neurons of the monkey related to the visual guidance of hand movements. Experimental Brain Research, 83, 29–36.
Tipper, S. P. (2001). Does negative priming reflect inhibitory mechanisms? A review and integration of conflicting views. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 54A, 321–343.
Wiediger, M., & Fournier, L. R. (in press). An action sequence withheld in memory can delay execution of visually guided actions: The generalization of response compatibility interference. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance.
Wild-Wall, N., Falkenstein, M., & Hohnsbein, J. (2008). Flanker interference in young and older participants as reflected in event-related potentials. Brain Research, 1211, 72–84.
Wühr, P., & Müsseler, J. (2001). Time course of the blindness to response-compatible stimuli. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 27, 1260–1270.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Mattson, P.S., Fournier, L.R. An action sequence held in memory can interfere with response selection of a target stimulus, but does not interfere with response activation of noise stimuli. Memory & Cognition 36, 1236–1247 (2008). https://doi.org/10.3758/MC.36.7.1236
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/MC.36.7.1236