Abstract
The present study investigates the effect of practice in a psychological refractory period (PRP) paradigm on the backward compatibility effect (BCE), in order to determine the locus of this response priming effect on Task1 performance. In two experiments, we show that the size of the BCE is closely associated with the duration of the response selection stage in Task1. When this stage is shortened through PRP practice, the magnitude of the BCE decreases. Subsequently increasing the duration of Task1 response selection results in a larger BCE, but manipulating the same stage in Task2 does not. Our results suggest that the BCE reflects crosstalk of unattended response information for Task2 acting on the response selection stage in Task1, and that response information for two tasks may be activated simultaneously.
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Notes
Credit and compensation rates implemented incentives and penalties as motivation, determined using each individual’s Task1 accuracy and RT from the previous session.
Correlational analysis of RT1 versus BCE using individual participants’ data over training sessions would be strongly driven by RT1 variability between participants, due to causes unrelated to RS shortening over practice. Our analyses here focus on interpretability of within-participant changes over practice.
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Author note
We are grateful to members of McMaster University’s Cognitive Science Laboratory for assistance with data collection, and to Karin R. Humphreys for useful discussions about this work. This research was supported by a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Grant #327454 to S.W., and by an NSERC postgraduate scholarship (PGS-D) to S.J.T. Correspondence concerning this article should be sent to S. J. Thomson or S. Watter, Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour, McMaster University, 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, L8S 4K1, Canada (email: thomsosj@mcmaster.ca or watter@mcmaster.ca).
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Thomson, S.J., Danis, L.K. & Watter, S. PRP training shows Task1 response selection is the locus of the backward response compatibility effect. Psychon Bull Rev 22, 212–218 (2015). https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-014-0660-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-014-0660-z