Citation

Wühr P, Koch I. Acta Psychol. 2011; 138(1): 272-280.

Affiliation

Technische Universität Dortmund, Dortmund, Germany.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.actpsy.2011.07.004

PMID

21802650

Abstract

The present study investigates the effect of spatial stimulus-response correspondence (i.e. Simon effect) in pre-planned manual response sequences. Participants performed pre-cued response sequences consisting of three (Experiment 1) or four (Experiments 2 and 3) key-presses at different locations. Importantly, participants performed each response to a visual go signal, which appeared at a location corresponding to one response in the sequence. This task allowed investigating interference gradients across spatially noncorresponding conditions. We observed a Simon effect at each serial position, that is, RT for the corresponding condition was always shorter than RT for each noncorresponding condition. However, we failed to observe interference gradients from both preceding and subsequent responses in the sequence. These results are inconsistent with (1) a primacy gradient of activations representing serial order and (2) the temporary suppression of an executed response as a mechanism for preventing response repetitions. However, results provide indirect evidence for positional models of serial order.

Language: en