Stimulus-Response Compatibility and Motor-Programming Effects: A Test of Theoretical Accounts of Compatibility

Traditional mental coding accounts of stimulus-response (S-R) compatibility suggest that the S-R translation stage is the locus for the effect (Umilta & Nicoletti, 1990; Wallace, 1971). However, recent response-priming accounts have suggested that the S-R translation and response-programming stages may interact to produce S-R compatibility effects (Kornblum, Hasbroucq, & Osman, 1990; Wickens. 1984; Zelaznik & Franz, 1990). Our study investigated the nature of the relation between these two stages relative to the S-R compat- ibility effect. Subjects performed a choice reaction-time task in response to visual stimuli. The critical manipulations in the study were of compatibility and response programming. The analysis revealed a significant compatibility effect but no interaction between the factors affecting compatibility and those affect- ing response programming. The results were consistent with the notion that the S-R translation stage of information processing is the locus of S-R compatibility effects. Thus S-R compatibility is an effect of the mental operations that occur within the S-R translation stage of human information processing.