Dissociation of S-R compatibility and Simon effects with mixed tasks and mappings

Binary-choice reactions are typically faster when the stimulus location corresponds with that of the response than when it does not. This advantage of spatial correspondence is known as the stimulus-response compatibility (SRC) effect when the mapping of stimulus location, as the relevant stimulus dimension, is varied to be compatible or incompatible with response location. It is called the Simon effect when stimulus location is task-irrelevant. The SRC effect is eliminated when compatible and incompatible spatial mappings are mixed within a trial block, and the Simon effect is eliminated when the Simon task is mixed with the SRC task with incompatible spatial mapping. Eliminations of both types have been attributed to suppression of an automatic response-activation route. We tested predictions of this suppression hypothesis for conditions in which the SRC and Simon tasks were intermixed and the spatial mappings on the SRC trials could be compatible or incompatible. In Experiment 1, the two tasks were equally likely, as were compatible and incompatible spatial mappings on SRC trials; in Experiment 2, the SRC or Simon task was more frequent; and, in Experiment 3, the compatible or incompatible location mapping for the SRC task was more frequent. The SRC effect was absent overall in all experiments, whereas the Simon effect was robust to the manipulations and showed the characteristic decrease across the reaction time (RT) distribution. This dissociation of effects implies that the automatic response-activation route is not suppressed in mixed conditions and suggests that mixing influences the SRC and Simon effects by different means.

Dissociating influences of key and hand separation on the Stroop color-identification effect

Three experiments examined the influence of distance between response keys (and hands) on the Stroop effect obtained for two-choice tasks in which stimulus colors were identified with keypresses. The Stroop effect was larger when the response locations were close together than when they were far apart, replicating a previous finding. Although this result was obtained only in the initial 30 trials, it was evident in a between-subject design as well as a within-subject design. With more practice, the Stroop effect was of similar size for the close and far separation conditions. Also, when the keys were close together, the Stroop effect was of similar size regardless of whether they were actuated by fingers from one or two hands, providing evidence against anatomical discriminability as a critical factor. Finally, the Stroop effect was numerically larger when the close keys were pressed by sticks held at the far separation than when the far keys were pressed by sticks held at the close separation, implicating distance between the keys rather than the hands as the main factor. The initially larger Stroop effect in RT for close keys could be due to lower spatial discriminability or to an accuracy bias in response thresholds, as suggested by the finding that it was accompanied by a numerically smaller effect in percent error.

Up or Down: Directional Stimulus-Response Compatibility and Natural Scrolling

The settings of scrolling direction (e.g., whether scrolling up or down to move the display content up) on current computer operating systems are discrepant, which may impair users’ performance and user experience. To evaluate the alternatives, we conducted two experiments. In Experiment 1, we simulated the way people read and scroll on a computer by asking participants to press the up-arrow or down-arrow key to scroll the screen. In Experiment 2, we eliminated the scrolling component by including only a location-judgment task. We examined directional stimulus-response compatibility in the scrolling task and the location-judgment task. Results showed that responses were facilitated when the control direction was compatible with the display content movement direction. This finding is consonant with the Mac OS X Lion operating system, which defines the default scrolling direction as “move content in the direction of finger movement.” We recommend that other systems adopt this directional compatible mapping.

Influence of temporal overlap on time course of the Simon effect

Two experiments are reported in which we manipulated relevant and irrelevant stimulus dimensions to assess whether an increase in temporal overlap would influence the time course of a "standard" Simon effect (obtained when visual stimuli are presented on the left/right of the screen and left/right responses are performed with uncrossed hands). This procedure is new in two ways: First, the manipulations were intended to reduce, instead of increase, the distance between conditional and unconditional response-activation processes. Second, we manipulated the relevant and irrelevant stimulus dimensions in a manner that did not vary stimulus onset asynchronies, precues, or go/no go trials, or alter the stimulus quality. Results were consistent with the hypothesis that when the two response processes are shifted closer to each other, the Simon effect would be sustained across time, instead of decreasing as typically found. These findings are discussed in line with the temporal overlap hypothesis and with an automatic activation account.

Multidimensional vector model of stimulus-response compatibility

The present study proposes and examines the multidimensional vector (MDV) model framework as a modeling schema for choice response times. MDV extends the Thurstonian model, as well as signal detection theory, to classification tasks by taking into account the influence of response properties on stimulus discrimination. It is capable of accounting for stimulus-response compatibility, which is known to be an influential task variable determining choice-reaction performance but has not been considered in previous mathematical modeling efforts. Specific MDV models were developed for 5 experiments using the Simon task, for which stimulus location is task irrelevant, to examine the validity of model assumptions and illustrate characteristic behaviors of model parameters. The MDV models accounted for the experimental data to a remarkable degree, demonstrating the adequacy of the framework as a general schema for modeling the latency of choice performance. Some modeling issues involved in the MDV model framework are discussed.

Referential coding contributes to the horizontal SMARC effect

The present study tested whether coding of tone pitch relative to a referent contributes to the correspondence effect between the pitch height of an auditory stimulus and the location of a lateralized response. When left-right responses are mapped to high or low pitch tones, performance is better with the high-right/low-left mapping than with the opposite mapping, a phenomenon called the horizontal SMARC effect. However, when pitch height is task irrelevant, the horizontal SMARC effect occurs only for musicians. In Experiment 1, nonmusicians performed a pitch discrimination task, and the SMARC effect was evident regardless of whether a referent tone was presented. However, in Experiment 2, for a timbre-judgment task, nonmusicians showed a SMARC effect only when a referent tone was presented, whereas musicians showed a SMARC effect that did not interact with presence/absence of the referent. Dependence of the SMARC effect for nonmusicians on a reference tone was replicated in Experiment 3, in which judgments of the color of a visual stimulus were made in the presence of a concurrent high- or low-pitched pure tone. These results suggest that referential coding of pitch height is a key determinant for the horizontal SMARC effect when pitch height is irrelevant to the task.

Correspondence effects for objects with opposing left and right protrusions

Choice reactions to a property of an object stimulus are often faster when the location of a graspable part of the object corresponds with the location of a keypress response than when it does not, a phenomenon called the object-based Simon effect. Experiments 1-3 examined this effect for variants of teapot stimuli that were oriented to the left or right. Whether keypress responses were made with fingers within the same hand or between different hands was also manipulated. Experiment 1 showed that, for judgments of stimulus color and upright-inverted orientation, the Simon effect for intact teapots occurred in the direction of the spout location and was larger for within- than between-hand response modes. In Experiments 2 and 3, teapots with the handle or spout removed showed separate contributions of each component to the Simon effect. In Experiment 4, we clarified a discrepancy between our findings of object-based Simon effects and a previously reported absence of effect with color judgments for door-handle stimuli. We obtained an object-based Simon effect with respect to handle position when the bases of the door handles were centered but not when the handles were centered. The findings that object-based Simon effects occur with color judgments and when responses are fingers on the same hand are in closer agreement with a location coding account than with a grasping affordance account.

Colour Correspondence Effects between Controlled Objects and Targets

It is increasingly popular to use movement trajectories as a measure of mental processes related to task performance. Often this is accomplished by moving a cursor to a target on a computer screen. However, the relation between features of the cursor and the targets is rarely, if at all, considered. In five experiments, we examined whether moving a cursor to a target was affected by the relation between their colours, even when this relation was task irrelevant. In Experiments 1–3, a mouse-controlled cursor was moved to one of two coloured targets. Results showed colour correspondence effects in latency to initiate a response, duration of movement times, and movement trajectories when the relationship between cursor and target colours was task relevant (Experiment 1) and when only the cursor colour was task relevant (Experiment 2), but not when only the target was task relevant (Experiment 3). Follow-up experiments using single targets showed that colour correspondence effects occurred as long as attention was dedicated to the colour of the cursor, even when neither the cursor nor the target colour was relevant to selecting the correct movement (Experiments 4 and 5). Furthermore, when the relation between cursor and target colours is task irrelevant, colour correspondence effects for response initiation times are uncorrelated with those for movement times and movement trajectories. We interpret the observed correspondence effect in terms of response coding, although attention cueing may also play a role, and suggest that greater consideration of cursor features is needed when examining movement trajectories in choice reaction tasks.

Inhabitant-Centered Interaction Technology for Future Homes

The technology is available to construct technology-intensive homes that are environmentally friendly and have many functions controlled by networked systems. For the benefits of the technology to be realized, the homes must be designed to support human interactions. The authors review characteristics of smart homes and high-performance buildings with an emphasis on issues concerning human interactions with technologies. Inhabitant-centered design recommendations are described, including incorporating inhabitants’ living behaviors into the design process; providing universal accessibility; linking devices, appliances, and functions with “meaningful” connections; using simple forms of human-technology interaction; and presenting integrated information for multiple environmental variables in addition to information about the individual variables.

Fostering creativity in product and service development: validation in the domain of information technology

OBJECTIVE

This research is intended to empirically validate a general model of creative product and service development proposed in the literature.

BACKGROUND

A current research gap inspired construction of a conceptual model to capture fundamental phases and pertinent facilitating metacognitive strategies in the creative design process. The model also depicts the mechanism by which design creativity affects consumer behavior. The validity and assets of this model have not yet been investigated.

METHOD

Four laboratory studies were conducted to demonstrate the value of the proposed cognitive phases and associated metacognitive strategies in the conceptual model. Realistic product and service design problems were used in creativity assessment to ensure ecological validity.

RESULTS

Design creativity was enhanced by explicit problem analysis, whereby one formulates problems from different perspectives and at different levels of abstraction. Remote association in conceptual combination spawned more design creativity than did near association. Abstraction led to greater creativity in conducting conceptual expansion than did specificity, which induced mental fixation. Domain-specific knowledge and experience enhanced design creativity, indicating that design can be of a domain-specific nature. Design creativity added integrated value to products and services and positively influenced customer behavior.

CONCLUSION

The validity and value of the proposed conceptual model is supported by empirical findings.

APPLICATION

The conceptual model of creative design could underpin future theory development. Propositions advanced in this article should provide insights and approaches to facilitate organizations pursuing product and service creativity to gain competitive advantage.

Response-repetition effects in task switching - dissociating effects of anatomical and spatial response discriminability

In task switching, response repetitions typically lead to performance benefits for task repetitions but costs for task switches. We examined whether this cost-benefit pattern is affected by response discriminability (RD), varying (a) the anatomical response separation (within-hand vs. between-hand responses) and (b) the spatial separation (close vs. far response keys). We assumed that anatomical RD increases response competition generally, whereas spatial RD increases the salience of left-right coding and thus facilitates response selection. In two experiments, we found that spatial RD increased the response-repetition costs in task switches but similarly decreased the response-repetition benefit in task repetitions. The effect of spatial RD was response-specific but did not interact with task switching. This data pattern is consistent with a recent account that proposed that facilitated response selection increases response "self-inhibition" after response execution. In contrast, the influence of anatomical RD primarily consisted of an overall increase of reaction-time level in all conditions, whereas error rates decreased, suggesting a general shift in response criterion. Taken together, the data suggest that a self-inhibition mechanism on the level of motor response codes contributes to response-repetition effects in task switching, which is possibly independent of task-specific mechanisms of strengthening of associations.

A review of contemporary ideomotor theory

A framework for action planning, called ideomotor theory, suggests that actions are represented by their perceivable effects. Thus, any activation of the effect image, either endogenously or exogenously, will trigger the corresponding action. We review contemporary studies relating to ideomotor theory in which researchers have investigated various manipulations of action effects and how those effects acquire discriminative control over the actions. Evidence indicates that the knowledge about the relation between response and effect is still a critical component even when other factors, such as stimulus-response or response-response relations, are controlled. When consistent tone effects are provided after responses are made, performance in serial-reaction tasks is better than when the effects are random. Methodology in which acquisition and test stages are used with choice-reaction tasks shows that an action is automatically associated with its effect bilaterally and that anticipation of the effect facilitates action. Ideomotor phenomena include stimulus-response compatibility, in which the perceptual feature of the stimulus activates its corresponding action code when the stimulus itself resembles the effect codes. For this reason, other stimulus-driven action facilitation such as ideomotor action and imitation are treated as ideomotor phenomena and are reviewed. Ideomotor theory also implies that ongoing action affects perception of concurrent events, a topic which we review briefly. Issues concerning ideomotor theory are identified and evaluated. We categorize the range of ideomotor explanations into several groups by whether intermediate steps are assumed to complete sensorimotor transformation or not and by whether a general theoretical framework or a more restricted one is provided by the account.

Attention is required for acquisition but not expression of new response biases

Throughout a lifetime of interaction with the physical environment, people develop a strong bias to respond on the same side as the location of a target object, even when its location is irrelevant to the task at hand. Recent research has shown that this compatibility bias can be overridden with relatively brief but focused training. To better understand how such training affects preexisting response biases, we investigated whether attention is required to acquire and express a new bias to respond on the opposite side, thus creating an incompatibility bias. Participants practiced making responses on the opposite side from left and right tones and then made responses based on the frequencies (high or low) of the same tones. As in previous research, practice with a spatially incompatible mapping eliminated the compatible bias in the Simon task. The addition of an attention load (continuous secondary tracking task) during practice prevented learning the new response bias. However, once the new bias was learned, it overrode the compatibility bias regardless of available attentional resources. We suggest that not only can a quickly learned response bias overwhelm preexisting biases that are acquired over years of experience but that recently learned and older, preexisting biases are similarly affected by attention load.

Playing the Simon game: use of the Simon task for investigating human information processing

A little more than 40 years ago, J. R. Simon and colleagues introduced what is now called the Simon task, which yielded a correspondence effect known as the Simon effect. In this paper, I set Simon's contribution in the context of research on stimulus-response compatibility. The novel contribution of the Simon task is described, along with foundational findings using the task that Simon and colleagues reported. I acknowledge the significance of Simon's (1990) review chapter in generating my own interests in the Simon task and describe four selected lines of research from my lab that have been a result of those interests. The article concludes with a brief tribute to Simon and his contribution to experimental psychology.

The object-based Simon effect: grasping affordance or relative location of the graspable part?

Reaction time is often shorter when the irrelevant graspable handle of an object corresponds with the location of a keypress response to the relevant attribute than when it does not. This object-based Simon effect has been attributed to an affordance for grasping the handle with the hand to the same side. Because a grasping affordance should differentially affect keypress responses only when they are made with different hands, we conducted three experiments that measured the object-based Simon effect for frying pan stimuli using between- and within-hand response sets. When the relevant stimulus dimension was color, neither the object-based Simon effect nor the location-based Simon effect varied across response sets. When upright-inverted orientation judgments were made for the frying pan and for nongraspable stimuli derived from it, there again was no significant difference in size of the between- and within-hand Simon effects for any of the stimuli. The results provide evidence that the Simon effect for graspable frying pan stimuli is because of relative location of the handle and not to a grasping affordance.

Creativity in ergonomic design: a supplemental value-adding source for product and service development

OBJECTIVE

This article investigates the role of creativity in ergonomic design and the generic process of developing creative products and services.

BACKGROUND

Creativity is gaining increased emphasis in both academia and industry. More than 50 years of research in creativity indicates that creativity is key to product and service innovation. Nevertheless, there is scarcely any comprehensive review dedicated to appraising the complex construct of creativity, the underlying cognitive process, and the role of creativity in product and service development.

METHOD

We review relevant literature regarding creativity, creative cognition, and the engineering design process to appraise the role of creativity in ergonomic design and to construct a conceptual model of creative product and service development.

RESULTS

A framework of ergodesign creativity is advanced that highlights the central role of creativity in synergistically addressing the four dimensions of ergonomic design: functionality, safety, usability, and affectivity. A conceptual model of creative design process is then constructed that is goal oriented and is initiated by active problem finding and problem formulating. This process is carried out in a recursive and dynamic way, facilitated by creative thinking strategies.

CONCLUSION

It is proposed that ergodesign creativity can add supplemental value to products and services, which subsequently affects consumer behavior and helps organizations gain competitive advantage.

APPLICATION

The proposed conceptual framework of ergodesign creativity and creative design process can serve as the ground for future theory development. Propositions advanced in this study should facilitate designers generating products and services that are creative and commercially competitive.

Does the contribution of stimulus-hand correspondence to the auditory Simon effect increase with practice?

In two-choice reaction tasks for which stimulus location is irrelevant, crossing the hands typically does not alter the benefit for corresponding stimulus and response locations (the Simon effect), which implies location coding of responses. However, for auditory tasks in which a consistent mapping between responding hand and tone pitch is maintained, the Simon effect may become smaller for crossed than uncrossed hands with practice, suggesting increased reliance on anatomical coding. Two experiments tested this possibility. In Exp. 1, the Simon effect tended to be smaller with crossed than uncrossed hands in the second half of 1,600 trials but not in the first half. Experiment 2 showed that this result was not due to reinstructing subjects mid-experiment about the consistent mapping of stimuli to hands. Although the Simon effect was apparent with crossed hands throughout both experiments, it tended to be slightly smaller than the effect obtained with uncrossed hands.