The effects of irrelevant stimuli: 1. The time course of stimulus–stimulus and stimulus–response consistency effects with Stroop-like stimuli, Simon-like tasks, and their factorial combinations.

Abstract

The effects of Simon-and Stroop-like stimuli are examined in isolation and in factorial combinations with different delays between the presentation of the irrelevant and the relevant stimuli. The effects of irrelevant stimuli have different time courses depending on whether they overlap with the relevant stimulus (stimulus-stimulus overlap, Dimensional Overlap [DO] Type 4) or with the response (stimulus-response overlap, DO Type 3). A new, computational, parallel distributed processing (PDP)-type model, DO'97, is presented that is based on the original DO model (S. Kornblum, 1994;S. Kornblum, T. Hasbroucq, & A. Osman, 1990), and it postulates a nonmonotone irrelevant stimulus activation function in addition to 2 temporally ordered, serial, nonindependent stages: a stimulus processing stage and a response production stage. DO'97 is able to simulate the temporal dynamic characteristics of the processes, with good fits to the empirical data of this study and other published studies, at the level of means, variances, and distributional plots.After decades of empirical, and generally fragmented, research on stimulus-stimulus (S-S) and stimulus-response (S-R) compatibility effects, attempts have recently been made to understand the broad theoretical underpinnings of this large class of phenomena. Some of these attempts, instead of treating each effect in isolation, as had been done in the past, have tried to identify the processing principles that they have in common. Thus, by carefully examining these effects, particularly the effects of irrelevant stimuli, many similarities have become apparent. For example, when the irrelevant aspects of a stimulus are consistent with the relevant aspects either of the stimulus or of the response, reaction times (RTs) tend to be faster than when they are inconsistent (for reviews see Prinz, 1997, andProctor &Reeve, 1990). 1 Different combinations of such consistency relationships produce the so-called Stroop effect (for a review see MacLeod, 1991), the Simon effect (for a review see Simon, 1990), and other compatibility effects.

Planning and Representing Intentional Action

“…In agreement with this approach, varying the relative strength of incompatible stimulus-response associations systematically allows one to predict the direction and relative size of Stroop-type effects [128]. Relative-strength accounts have also been suggested for spatial stimulus-response effects, such as the spatial stimulus-response compatibility effect proper (where stimulus location is nominally relevant) and the Simon effect (where stimulus location is nominally irrelevant) [129,130,131]. Thus, people may find it easier to respond to left and right stimuli with a left and right response, respectively, because the spatial codes of corresponding stimuli and responses are associated more strongly.…”

Equivalence of cognitive processes in brain imaging and behavioral studies: evidence from task switching

“…As another example, consider experiments on stimulus-response compatibility using Strooplike, Simon-like, or flanker interference tasks, in which nominally irrelevant stimulus features interfere with performance (for review, see, e.g., Kornblum et al, 1990;Lu and Proctor, 1995). Here, the relevant cognitive process underlying the usually observed compatibility effect is assumed to depend on a temporally decaying code (Hommel, 1994;Kornblum et al, 1999). This code decay might progress to a larger degree due to the longer RT in the scanner, so that the general slowing inside the scanner relative to normal behavioral testing conditions could affect the size of the effect.…”

Stimulus-response compatibility and psychological refractory period effects: Implications for response selection

“…Kornblum and his colleagues have tested the DOM in a series of studies using the task taxonomy to classify tasks in terms of their dimensional overlap properties (Kornblum, 1992;Kornblum & Lee, 1995;Kornblum, Stevens, Whipple, & Requin, 1999;Zhang & Kornblum, 1998). Many of their findings are generally consistent with the DOM.…”

“…However, because the DOM is a relative activation strength model, temporal activation properties can be incorporated within it. Such functions have in fact been included in a recent connectionist network implementationof the model by Kornblum et al (1999). …”

“…The inclusion of this additional kind of overlap led Kornblum and Lee to propose a taxonomy that classifies tasks into eight categories (see Table 1) on the basis of dimensionaloverlap between (1) the relevant stimulus information and the response, (2) the irrelevant stimulus information and the response, and (3) the relevant and irrelevant stimulus dimensions. The eight task types defined by the taxonomy extend from Type 1 ensembles, for which there is no overlap of the relevant and irrelevant stimulus dimensions with each other or with the response dimension, to Type 8 ensembles, for which there is overlap of all three types.Kornblum and his colleagues have tested the DOM in a series of studies using the task taxonomy to classify tasks in terms of their dimensional overlap properties (Kornblum, 1992;Kornblum & Lee, 1995;Kornblum, Stevens, Whipple, & Requin, 1999;Zhang & Kornblum, 1998). Many of their findings are generally consistent with the DOM.…”