Watch what you type: The role of visual feedback from the screen and hands in skilled typewriting

Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics - Skilled typing is controlled by two hierarchically structured processing loops (Logan & Crump, 2011): The outer loop, which produces words,...     

The Simon task with multi-component responses: two loci of response–effect compatibility

The stimulus–response compatibility (SRC) effect refers to the phenomenon that responses are faster and more accurate when stimulus and response correspond than when they do not. The phenomenon is robust in that it is observed even when SRC is irrelevant to performing the task, a variant known as the Simon effect. Recent studies also demonstrated that responses are faster when they are spatially compatible with their effects in the environment (action effects) than when they are incompatible. This response–effect (R–E) compatibility effect is thought to stem from the fact that stimuli first activate anticipated effect codes, which then activate corresponding action codes. In the present study, the Simon task was used to examine influences of multiple response components on performance. Three response components were orthogonally manipulated. The results of three experiments indicated that there are two separate processes that are influenced by R–E compatibility; one that is responsible for the SRC effect (S–R translation) and the other that is independent of SRC (action programming). The influence of R–E compatibility on the former process depended on manipulations that varied attentional demands of the task.     

Influences of response position and hand posture on the orthogonal Simon effect

When lateralized responses are made to the locations of vertically arrayed stimuli, two types of mapping effect have been reported: an overall up-right/down-left advantage and mapping preferences that vary with response position. According to Cho and Proctor's (2003) multiple asymmetric codes account, these orthogonal stimulus-response compatibility effects are due to the correspondence of stimulus polarity and response polarity, as determined by the positions relative to multiple frames of reference. The present study examined these two types of orthogonal compatibility for situations in which participants made left-right responses to the colours of a vertically arrayed stimulus set, and stimulus location was irrelevant. Although a significant orthogonal Simon effect was not evident when responding at a centred, neutral response position, the effect was modulated by response eccentricity (Experiment 2) and hand posture (Experiment 3). These effects are qualitatively similar to those obtained when stimulus location is task relevant. The results imply that, as Proctor and Cho's (2006) polarity correspondence principle suggests, the stimulus polarity code activates the response code of corresponding polarity even when stimulus location is irrelevant to the task.     

Transfer of noncorresponding spatial associations to the auditory Simon task

Four experiments examined transfer of noncorresponding spatial stimulus-response associations to an auditory Simon task for which stimulus location was irrelevant. Experiment 1 established that, for a horizontal auditory Simon task, transfer of spatial associations occurs after 300 trials of practice with an incompatible mapping of auditory stimuli to keypress responses. Experiments 2-4 examined transfer effects within the auditory modality when the stimuli and responses were varied along vertical and horizontal dimensions. Transfer occurred when the stimuli and responses were arrayed along the same dimension in practice and transfer but not when they were arrayed along orthogonal dimensions. These findings indicate that prior task-defined associations have less influence on the auditory Simon effect than on the visual Simon effect, possibly because of the stronger tendency for an auditory stimulus to activate its corresponding response.     

Threat captures attention but does not affect learning of contextual regularities

Some of the stimulus features that guide visual attention are abstract properties of objects such as potential threat to one's survival, whereas others are complex configurations such as visual contexts that are learned through past experiences. The present study investigated the two functions that guide visual attention, threat detection and learning of contextual regularities, in visual search. Search arrays contained images of threat and non-threat objects, and their locations were fixed on some trials but random on other trials. Although they were irrelevant to the visual search task, threat objects facilitated attention capture and impaired attention disengagement. Search time improved for fixed configurations more than for random configurations, reflecting learning of visual contexts. Nevertheless, threat detection had little influence on learning of the contextual regularities. The results suggest that factors guiding visual attention are different from factors that influence learning to guide visual attention.     

Automaticity without extensive training: The role of memory retrieval in implementation of task-defined rules

Although the concept of automaticity is closely associated with extensive rote training, previous studies have shown that task-defined stimulus-response (S-R) mappings can be implemented in parallel and involuntarily, without much training, as if they are automatically processed. An irrelevant task context may trigger a task-defined rule because the rule is actively maintained in working memory, resulting in erroneous implementation of that rule. However, the present study demonstrated that active maintenance of task rules is not necessary for their automatic implementation. Instead, the results are consistent with the memory view of automaticity, according to which task-defined S-R rules are implemented via automatic retrieval of S-R episodes.     

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

The 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.     

Stimulus-response compatibility with pure and mixed mappings in a flight task environment

The present study examined the stimulus-response compatibility (SRC) effect in a simulated flight environment. Experiments 1 and 2 tested the effect with pure and mixed mappings in flight tasks by using attitude displays with inside-out and outside-in formats, whereas Experiments 3 and 4 used a simplified display and tasks. The SRC effect was obtained with mixed mappings when responses were turns of a flight yoke (Experiments 1-3). In contrast, the SRC effect was absent with mixed mappings when they were buttonpresses (Experiment 4). Analyses of sequential effects suggest that the reduction in Experiments 1-3 can be attributed to reduction in the frequency of trials for which the congruent mapping repeats, but the elimination in Experiment 4 cannot be. Implications of the findings are discussed in the context of aviation cockpit design.     

Influence of display type and cue format on task-cuing effects: Dissociating switch cost and right-left prevalence effects

In previous studies of task switching and of the right-left prevalence effect, researchers have used a procedure in which the stimulus on each trial occurs in one of four quadrants, and responses are made by pressing one of two diagonally arranged response keys. Across these studies, discrepant effects of cuing interval have been reported. These discrepancies need clarification because cue-based preparation effects are frequently interpreted as reflecting cognitive control processes. In Experiment 1, we compared performance with display formats used by Meiran (1996; Meiran, Chorev, & Sapir, 2000; small display, cues located at sides of quadrants and displayed until response) to study task switching and by Proctor and colleagues (Proctor, Koch, & Vu, 2006; large display, cues located at center of display and shown until target onset) to study right-left prevalence. We found a decrease in task-switch cost with increasing cuing interval with the Meiran display, but not with the Proctor display, but the right-left prevalence effect was of similar size for the two display formats and was relatively unaffected by cuing interval. To determine the basis of the discrepant task-switch results, we used small and large displays in Experiments 2 and 3, respectively, with cue type and cue offset varied. With the side cues, the task-switch cost decreased in all cases at the longer cuing interval, but with the centered cues, it decreased only when the display size was small. Thus, the effects of cuing interval on switch costs are sensitive to variations of display characteristics, whereas cuing interval and display characteristics have little influence on the right-left prevalence effect, suggesting that prevalence effect is due to processes that are independent from those producing the switch cost.     

Transfer of learning in choice reactions: contributions of specific and general components of manual responses

Manifestations of learned skills and knowledge are known to be context-dependent. However, a study of perceptual-motor learning [Tagliabue, M., Zorzi, M., & Umiltà, C. (2002). Cross-modal re-mapping influences the Simon effect. Memory and Cognition, 30, 18-23] reported context-independent transfer of a learned stimulus-response (S-R) mapping to a task in which the mapping is no longer relevant. Although similar results were observed in subsequent studies, these studies also provided an indication that the transfer is context-dependent. The present study investigated the issue of context-dependence of the transfer of a learned S-R mapping. In experiment 1, groups of participants performed choice-reaction tasks with either the same or different response modes (keypresses or joystick movements) in the practice and transfer sessions. Smaller transfer effects were observed for those who switched response mode in the transfer session than for those who did not, indicating that transfer of the learned mapping is context-dependent. However, transfer also occurred for the former group, indicating that the transfer effect is dependent on both general and specific response components. In experiment 2, the same task conditions were examined, but with action effects consistent across the practice and transfer sessions, which were assumed to introduce a contextual feature that was common to the two sessions. The influence of action effects on transfer depended on the practiced response. The results are discussed in terms of feature overlap between the learning and test contexts, and an association network model of learning and response selection.