Reaching Into Response Selection: Stimulus and Response Similarity Influence Central Operations

To behave adaptively in complex and dynamic environments, one must link perception and action to satisfy internal states, a process known as response selection (RS). A largely unexplored topic in the study of RS is how interstimulus and interresponse similarity affect performance. To examine this is...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance 2017-03, Vol.43 (3), p.555-568
Main Authors: Wifall, Tim, Buss, Aaron T., Farmer, Thomas A., Spencer, John P., Hazeltine, Eliot
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accuracy
Adolescent
Adult
Choice Behavior
Choice Behavior - physiology
Cognition
Human
Human performance
Humans
Motor Activity - physiology
Perceptions
Psychology
Psychomotor Performance - physiology
Reaction Time
Response selection
Responses
Rodents
Space Perception - physiology
Stimulus
Stimulus Similarity
Visual Perception - physiology
Visual Tracking
Young Adult
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Summary:To behave adaptively in complex and dynamic environments, one must link perception and action to satisfy internal states, a process known as response selection (RS). A largely unexplored topic in the study of RS is how interstimulus and interresponse similarity affect performance. To examine this issue, we manipulated stimulus similarity by using colors that were either similar or dissimilar and manipulated response similarity by having participants move a mouse cursor to locations that were either close together or far apart. Stimulus and response similarity produced an interaction such that the mouse trajectory showed the greatest curvature when both were similar, a result obtained under task conditions emphasizing speed and conditions emphasizing accuracy. These findings are inconsistent with symbolic look-up accounts of RS but are consistent with central codes incorporating metrical properties of both stimuli and responses. Public Significance Statement To perform most tasks, our cognitive system must link incoming sensory information with an appropriate action (e.g., depressing the accelerator when a traffic light turns green), a process known as response selection. In this study, movements of a computer mouse were affected by both the similarity of the possible stimuli and the similarity of the possible responses, suggesting that metrical information from input and output processes is present during response selection. These results run counter to traditional theories of response selection and help inform theories of human performance.
ISSN:0096-1523
1939-1277
DOI:10.1037/xhp0000301