No abstract

Response-irrelevant stimuli can be encoded with, and later on retrieve, a response given to a relevant stimulus, an effect that is called distractor-response binding. In three experiments using a prime-probe design, we investigated whether the allocation of attention modulates the processes contributing to distractor-response binding. Participants identified letters via keypresses while attending to one of two sets of simultaneously presented but response-irrelevant number stimuli. In different experiments, both spatial attention and feature-based attention were allocated to the response-irrelevant stimuli. The results showed that only attended response-irrelevant stimuli elicited effects of distractor-response binding. In particular, while the encoding of response-irrelevant stimuli and responses was not particularly affected by attention during prime processing, only attended response-irrelevant stimuli in the probe retrieved previous responses. Hence, we show that attention affects action regulation due to modulating the influence of stimulus-response binding on behavior.

Short-term bindings between responses and events in the environment ensure efficient behavioral control. This notion holds true for two particular types of binding: bindings between responses and response-irrelevant distractor stimuli that are present at the time of responding, and also for bindings between responses and the effects they cause. Although both types of binding have been extensively studied in the past, little is known about their interrelation. In three experiments, we analyzed both types of binding processes in a distractorresponse binding design and in a response-effect binding design, which yielded two central findings: (1) Distractorresponse binding and response-effect binding effects were observed not only in their native, but also in the corresponding Bnon-native^design, and (2) a manipulation of retrieval delay affected both types of bindings in a similar way. We suggest that a general and unselective mechanism is responsible for integrating own responses with a large variety of stimuli.

A single encounter of a stimulus together with a response can result in a short-lived association between the stimulus and the response [sometimes called an event file, see Hommel, Müsseler, Aschersleben, & Prinz, (2001) Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 24, 910-926]. The repetition of stimulus-response pairings typically results in longer lasting learning effects indicating stimulus-response associations (e.g., Logan & Etherton, (1994) Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 20, 1022-1050]. An important question is whether or not what has been described as stimulus-response binding in action control research is actually identical with an early stage of incidental learning (e.g., binding might be seen as single-trial learning). Here, we present evidence that short-lived binding effects can be distinguished from learning of longer lasting stimulus-response associations. In two experiments, participants always responded to centrally presented target letters that were flanked by response irrelevant distractor letters. Experiment 1 varied whether distractors flanked targets on the horizontal or vertical axis. Binding effects were larger for a horizontal than for a vertical distractor-target configuration, while stimulus configuration did not influence incidental learning of longer lasting stimulus-response associations. In Experiment 2, the duration of the interval between response n - 1 and presentation of display n (500 ms vs. 2000 ms) had opposing influences on binding and learning effects. Both experiments indicate that modulating factors influence stimulus-response binding and incidental learning effects in different ways. We conclude that distinct underlying processes should be assumed for binding and incidental learning effects.

Binding between stimulus features and between stimuli and responses has been discussed as a central mechanism in human action control: Carrying out a response to a stimulus leads to bindings between stimulus and response features, so that repetition of one can retrieve the other later on. We find it intriguing that all discussions to date focus either on stimulus-stimulus or on stimulus-response bindings. Here we argue that response-response bindings are equally relevant for action control, if binding really plays a role in action representation. Hence, the present study investigates whether the same kind of integration and retrieval as observed between stimuli and responses is also possible between two individual responses pursuing different goals. A new design including sequential responses to a Task A and a Task B, was developed to analyze bindings between separately planned and executed responses. In two experiments, the results indicated retrieval of the response to Task B as a result of the repetition of the response to Task A. This is the first evidence for an integration of two separately planned responses in the same event representation. The result has implications for the structure of human action representation, indicating binding of individual actions in higher order representations, and suggests that binding is an even more ubiquitous mechanism in action control than previously shown. (PsycINFO Database Record